A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
By Dean Koontz
(Hyperion,
288 pages, $24.99)
A Big Little Life is more than just a funny and poignant
memoir of a couple's joyful experience with an exceptional dog,
though it's a delightful read on this level alone. It's also an
exploration of how a serious and successful writer came to better
understand the gift and meaning of life, and had his sense of
wonder restored, with the help of a golden retriever named
Trixie.
Little Life, Dean Koontz's first nonfiction book, is an
unusually effective brief for the joy that dogs bring us, though
many TAS readers, including me, need no convincing on
this point. For dog people there will be pleasurable jolts of
recognition as Koontz describes how Trixie always knew what the
destination was on car rides, how she was an excellent judge of
character, how she learned the meaning of a host of words (a
favorite being "nacho"), and how a fundamentally gentle dog faced
down a much larger Rottweiler who, it turns out, was all bark and
growl. Trixie never warned that Timmy had fallen down a well, but
she did warn of a fire in the Koontz oven before it got out of
hand.
Koontz identifies for us many of the reasons dogs charm us: their
innocence, their ability to live in the present, and their
unfailing love for us, even when we don't deserve it.
Too many of us die without knowing transcendent joy, in part
because we pursue one form or another of materialism. We seek
meaning in possessions, in pursuit of cosmic justice for
earthly grievances, in the acquisition of power over others. On
the other hand, dogs eat with gusto, play with exuberance, work
happily when given the opportunity, surrender themselves to the
wonder and mystery of their world, and love extravagantly.
What's not to like about that?
Dean and Gerda Koontz, high school sweethearts who married in
college, were enjoying successful and orderly lives in Southern
California before they decided to risk their somewhat neat-nik
home and workaholic schedules by adding a dog to their lives.
Both had always liked dogs, and Dean had included dogs in some of
his novels. Midnight, the first Koontz thriller to hit
number one on the bestseller list in 1989 featured a helper dog
named Moose. The popular Watchers of 1987 featured
Einstein, the smartest dog any of us are likely to encounter. But
chez Koontz had been dog-free until Trixie entered the picture in
1998.
Trixie, three years old at the time of her adoption, was a rescue
dog, but with a difference. She had been trained by Canine
Companions for Independence, a worthy non-profit that trains dogs
to help disabled people with a host of life's difficulties. Dean
stumbled across CCI while doing research for Midnight,
and has been a supporter of the organization ever since. After
the long and rigorous CCI training, Trixie worked with a young
woman named Jenna who had lost her legs in an auto accident. But
because of an elbow injury (who knew dogs had elbows?), Trixie
was forced into early retirement and pethood.
From 1998 until Trixie's premature death in 2007 due to cancer at
age 12 (a portion of the book some readers may wish to negotiate
with the aid of Kleenex), Trixie taught Koontz a number of
things. He became convinced that because of her intelligence and
her unblemished innocence that Trixie (and by extension other
dogs) not only had a soul, but probably one unblemished in
comparison to that of most people. (Theologians may dispute this,
but having recently had to put our aged and beloved German
short-haired pointer, Easy, to sleep, Koontz will get no argument
from my wife or me.) She also taught Koontz to be more attuned to
available joy, and "to be filled with gratitude for every grace
we receive."
Through this tribute to his dog, readers will learn more about
Dean Koontz the writer, and why, thanks at least partly to
Trixie, his recent novels are more full of humor and wonder and
assurance that life indeed has meaning than his work had been
before (not that he had previously been a Grinch). Trixie even
fortified Koontz in his faith.
I believe that Trixie, in addition to being a dog and a child
and an inspiration and a revelation, was also a quiet
theophany, a subtle manifestation of God, for by her innocent
joy and by her actions in my life, she lifted me from all
doubts of the sacred nature of our existence.
Koontz is one of the few writers of popular fiction today who
tells his stories from a conservative point of view. (And he's
very popular -- his 400 million in book sales put him in a sales
league with J.K. Rowling, Agatha Christie, Louis L'Amour, and
other publishing giants.) There are no sermons or political
speeches in Koontz's novels, but it's clear enough in his stories
that life has meaning as well as important choices between good
and evil. In Koontz's fictional world there are things worth
fighting for, things worth loving, and a lot worth laughing
about.
Clearly a sixty-pound golden retriever played a role in
lightening the heart and sharpening the view of an already acute
observer of the human parade. Readers of A Big Little
Life will see how this took place, and will learn a good
deal about two people and a dog well worth knowing.
topics:
Dean Koontz
