Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment
My rating: 5/5 cats
this book came closer to making me cry than any book ever has. (said karen, forgetting she has an entire shelf devoted to “books that made me cry” – a regrettable oversight.) there is so much perfect charming poignant love and affection and need and small quiet despair in it, that it touched a little emotional nub in me that books can’t usually find. it’s not even particularly sad, it’s just a little piece of “right there.”
when i was little, and would go to the library seriously all.the.time., they used to lend out picture books enclosed in a little plastic bag with this white plastic handle that snapped shut with such a satisfying noise that also contained a hand puppet of whatever animal main character the book featured. and i loved these things. the puppets always smelled so good, and for some reason, i found the whole idea of a linked toy-and-book mind-blowing. all of that to say that while i was reading this book, and despite my dislike for any dog that can fit in a shoulder bag, i really wanted to have a dachshund licking my fingers while i was reading, and wished one had come attached to the book, in a little bag.
this is a perfect dog book, it is a perfect new york book, it is a perfect post-9/11 book – it is just a whole lot of perfect crammed into a tiny little package. not unlike, i suppose, a dachshund.
right – one more thing – i just wanted to praise her for all the parts written from the dog’s POV – which is usually something that i think authors think is cute, but rarely works for me. but she nailed it (not nailed it as in – “yes, that is exactly how dogs think” – because how the hell would i know?) but there is a whole gorgeous episode of the dog in the animal hospital, away from her owners, not knowing why she is there and where they are, and trapped with animals in varying states of distress, and it is just so moving. and i had a cat that had serious medical problems – it was simultaneously renal and heart-and-lung, and he had to keep getting shuttled off to the vet to get his lungs drained of fluid, and the vet scenes in here really took me back to that helpless love for something i was responsible for, but couldn’t fix myself. pet-ownership is such a spectacularly fraught experience because it is falling in love with something you are bound to outlive. and it’s such a problematic relationship, in that respect. and right now my cat is yowling like crazy because she wants to go play bead in the hallway, and even though i have more paper to write, today of all days, i am going to give maggie exactly what she wants, because i am soft as a grape right now towards all animals, but especially the one who lets me grab her little handies.
