Discussing Dog Books

Susan Orlean and Julie Klam chat for the New York Times.

From the post...

What was it like having a main character be a dog?

 

Klam: Dogs are easier for me to write about than people. Is it harder to get into the mind of a dog? The options of what a dog could be feeling are limited: bad, good or being bad or being good. They’re not vengeful or whatever. I relate to them. I would like to think of myself as being very simple. 

Orlean: My first time writing about a dog was a profile about a show dog for The New Yorker some years ago. I’ve always been very adamant that at some point, with profile subjects, I have time alone with them without their posse of agents. So I did this profile of a boxer named Biff. I announced to the owner that I was a serious journalist and needed time alone. The owner looked at me like I was crazy. Biff was working out on his treadmill. And the owner said: “Would this work? You can talk while he’s working out?” I was totally mortified. It was my moment of being reminded that dogs don’t talk. But it’s that feeling of silent films. With a dog, all the noisiness of people blabbering is stripped away and you’re talking about behavior and gesture and it gives you freedom to interpret. I happen to think usually I’m right in my interpretation. 

Klam: I think I’m right too, but then I meet people who say, “I don’t think that’s what the dog was thinking at the time.” It says to me that there are people crazier than I am and who have a closer line on the dog mind than I do. 

Orlean: One issue is, how do you avoid being cutesy? Any time you write about animals or children you run the risk of it being sentimental or adorable. There are so many bad puns just begging to be made. It is never good to be cutesy unless you work for Hallmark.