Animals Between the Pages

by Sandra Parshall
 

Forget all those formulas for writing a bestselling book. The real secret may be reclining at your feet – or in your lap – right now.

Write a book about your pet.
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. households have one or more pets in residence. We spend more than $60 billion a year on them. We spend more on our pets than we spend on books. But publishers have always known that books about pets are sure sellers, and that’s more true now than ever.

Domestic animal books fall into several subcategories. Advice on basic feeding, training, and health care is always popular and usually authored by a veterinarian. However, according to Publishers Weekly, the top dog training books remain the classic bestsellers The Art of Raising a Puppy and How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend, written by the Monks of New Skete, who live as a community in Cambridge, NY. In January, competition arrives in the form of Decoding Your Dog: The Ultimate Experts Explain Common Dog Behaviors and Reveal How to Prevent or Change Unwanted Ones, a product of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. If enough people read it, maybe fewer dogs will be dumped at shelters because of behavioral problems.

Obviously, authoring books like these is best left to the professionals. But the breakout bestsellers tend to be heartwarming tales of human-animal interaction, and writers like Willie Morris have produced bestsellers about life with their pets. This fall, Beautiful Old Dogs: A Loving Tribute to Our Senior Best Friends, edited by David Tabatsky, will provide anecdotes from a number of writers, including Anna Quindlen and Dean Koontz, and other celebrities.

Stories about dogs that made life more meaningful for their humans never fail to touch readers’ hearts. A September title, Weekends with Daisy by Sharron Kahn Luttrell, was written by a woman who, grieving the loss of a pet, volunteered for a service dog training program that involved sharing Daisy with a prison inmate. (Many service dogs, in case you don’t know, are trained by inmates.) Look for the movie version from CBS Films.

Jon Katz is back with his second canine-related memoir, The Second Chance Dog, about a romantic relationship that nearly foundered when his new love’s dog refused to accept him.

Other upcoming dog memoirs are Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself: A Man and His Dog’s Struggle to Find Salvation by former Marine Zachery Anderegg, and Flash’s Song: How One Small Dog Turned into One Big Miracle by Kay Pfaltz.


Dogs that serve in the military, law enforcement, and search-and-rescue units have been in the news a lot the past few years, and books about them have formed a subgenre of their own. Navy Seal Dogs by Michael Ritland comes out in October, and Trust Your Dog: Police, Firefighters, and Military Officers Talk About Their K-9 Partners by Joan Plummer Russell was published in July.

If you’ve ever doubted whether dogs understand what we’re saying to them, read Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words by John W. Pilley with Hilary Hinzmann. Pilley, a retired psychologist, has documented his border collie’s understanding of human language.

But what about cats? Well, take a look at A Street Cat Named Bob and How He Saved My Life by James Bowen. First published in Britain, this book has been a runaway bestseller, with readers standing in line for hours to see Bowen – and Bob. The man signs books. The cat provides a paw print. You can keep up with Bob and his human at www.streetcatbob.blogspot.com.

You’ve surely seen Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub on the internet. Grumpy has her own product line, and now Bub has a book: Lil Bub’s Lil Book: The Extraordinary Life of the Most Amazing Cat on the Planet. Bub has a genetic disorder that doesn’t affect her quality of life but has kept her a kitten forever. Her owner, Mike Bridavksy, will donate his profits from the book to animal charities that support responsible pet ownership.

The New Yorker has a long association with cats, and The Big New Yorker Book of Cats (October) is crammed with articles, humorous pieces, poems, fiction, cartoons and such gleaned from decades of issues. Among the man authors included are Roald Dahl, T.C. Boyle, Calvin Trillin, John Updike, M.F.K. Fisher.

The internet is filled with funny cat and dog pictures, and those pictures have spilled over into books such as the Cheezburger cat collections and Dog Shaming, inspired by a captioned-photo web site of the same name.

Other pets get their moments in the literary spotlight too. The Diary of Edward the Hamster 1990-1990 by Miriam and Ezra Elia is the illustrated diary (described as existential by Publishers Weekly) of the short, darkly humorous life of a domesticated rodent.

Do you enjoy tales of interspecies love? Look for Unlikely Loves: 43 Heartwarming True Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer S. Holland and One Big Happy Family: Heartwarming Stories of Animals Caring for One Another by Lisa Rogak.

Animals have always been major figures in children’s literature, and they’re also solidly ensconced in the mystery genre. Even hardboiled detective Elvis Cole in Robert Crais’s thrillers has a cat in his life. My own books, mysteries on the darker side, always have animals in them because one of my protagonists, Rachel Goddard, is a veterinarian. You’re more likely to find animals front and center in cozies, though. Blaize Clement’s publisher, Minotaur, provided catnip-scented bookmarks for The Cat Sitter’s Cradle, eighth in her pet sitter series. The queen of mystery animals, though, is Sneaky Pie Brown, whose name is on the cover as co-author of Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series. These books feature sleuthing farm animals that talk to each other but have a little trouble communicating with their dense humans.

I believe the addition of an animal improves any book, and millions of pet owners agree with me. So whether you’re sticking with fiction featuring animals or writing the story of a beloved pet’s impact on your life, I wish you luck and I look forward to reading your book.

Clea Simon: Cat Mysteries with a Difference

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall


Clea Simon is the author of the Theda Krakow mystery series as well as three nonfiction books: Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings, Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads, and The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats. She is also a journalist, writing for the Boston Globe and other publications, and a member of the Cat Writers’ Association. Her third mystery, Cries and Whiskers, will be released December 15, and her first two, Mew Is for Murder and Cattery Row, are available in trade paperback. Clea and her husband, writer Jon S. Garelick, live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their cat, Musetta, who appears in the mysteries as Theda’s pet.

SP: Let's get to the most important question first: Is that your cat, Musetta, on your new book cover?

CS: It is! The designer asked for a photo of her, just for inspiration. Then he ended up doing some computer manipulation and – voila – she's a cover girl! The others are stock photos, alas. Pretty cats, but no real character.

SP: Your books can be called "cat mysteries" because they're mysteries involving cats, but they're far more serious than other novels in that subgenre and deal with some difficult topics. Has this brought you any interesting feedback from readers?

CS: Every now and then I get a gratifying "You go, girl!" from a reader, or a group like Animal Rescue League up here in Boston. Some feedback comes in the form of silence: My first mystery, Mew is for Murder, won some very nice awards from the Cat Writers Association, including their annual President's Award, which among our small crowd is quite a big deal. But my second mystery, Cattery Row, which dealt with breeders, was shut out. Now, maybe the judges just didn't think the writing or the plotting was that good. But I wonder.

SP: Why did you make Theda a music critic/reporter instead of giving her an animal-related job?

CS: I wanted her to be a real character, like a lot of single women I knew when I was younger. We all had pets, which we loved and which sustained us, but we had other aspects of our lives as well. And in the spirit of traditional mysteries, I wanted to set my books in a village-like subculture, which the rock world is. So, I guess I wanted to combine a bunch of elements. Focusing only on the animals would have seemed a little lopsided to me.

SP: You have a two-writer household with only one cat. This sounds like a recipe for ugly rivalry. Who does Musetta hang out with when the writing's being done?

CS: This made me laugh out loud! I'm lucky. My husband spends most of his days at his office; he works at the Boston Phoenix, an alternative arts weekly here in Boston. So I get all Musetta's attention during the day. But today is Sunday, we're both at work – and she's under his desk purring. I'm a little hurt, frankly. But I figure I'm old hat. I'm always at my computer. Jon only works at home on the occasional night or weekend, so she probably figures he needs more help.

SP: The very thought of one of our cats going missing is enough to give me nightmares. Was writing about Theda's missing cat in Cries and Whiskers difficult for you?

CS: Yes, it was. I kept checking to make sure Musetta was on her usual perch behind me. When she wasn't, I'd go around the house looking for her at various points. But my agent told me she thought I should up the suspense for this third book, and I thought: What am I most afraid of? So I had to have my heroine face death, alienation from her friends and ... the loss of her cat.

SP: You've written honestly about growing up with mentally ill siblings. Have you used any of your childhood/teen experiences in your fiction, or do you plan to?

CS: Well, you know, what you learn about human nature always comes into play when you create characters and you start thinking about motivation, blind spots, etc. Specifically, in terms of using my family history and my research, it's a catch as catch can (or catch as cat can) situation. I did have a character in Mew is for Murder who had schizophrenia. He was the adult son of the murdered "cat lady," and, of course, a suspect, and I tried to be true to his situation.

SP: Did journalism help you develop any skills that are useful in fiction writing?

CS: Oh, definitely: Writing on a deadline is great discipline. You can't have writer's block when you're paid to produce for a daily paper! Other than that, it introduced me to a lot of characters. I also worked as a copy editor for about a decade, and that was great in terms of learning to cut out the fat. As we used to joke, we could get the Ten Commandments down to six.

SP: Was the first novel you published also the first one you wrote, or do you have some unsold "closet manuscripts" like a lot of writers?

CS: I have half a closet manuscript. I was in love with it, and in retrospect I wish I'd at least finished it. But I showed it to a man I was dating at the time, and he read it and then said, "Honestly, it's not very good." I was crushed. It was years before I attempted fiction again -- and not until I was in a much more supportive relationship!

SP: How do you divide your time between fiction and nonfiction writing?

CS: Nonfiction can take over, largely because I have more immediate deadlines -- and more immediate paydays. So I have to make an effort every day to put aside some time for the fiction. I'm pretty good at this by now, but at times it is only an hour or two. On my best days, I wander around the house and work on the fun stuff until around 1 or 2. Then I go outside (this is important - especially as the days get shorter), do some errands, get some air, and come back and do the nonfiction until dinner.

SP: Do you have any other mystery series or standalones in mind, or would you prefer to stick with Theda for a long series?

CS: I do have another book I'm working on, which could be a standalone or the beginning of a new series. It features an English lit graduate student named Dulcie Schwartz. She's doing her thesis on the original Gothic novelists -- the pop fiction writers of the late 1700s. Of course, she ends up with a ghost and some other fun complications. I'm not sure what will happen with that, though. I certainly don't want to give up on Theda! I don't know how long she'll be around, but certainly for at least one more book.

SP: What advice do you have for aspiring writers who are still struggling to find an agent and/or a publisher?

CS: Persist. Sometimes I think perseverance more than talent wins out. At least, that's what I tell myself, because we don't have control over talent or inspiration. But we can decide to give up -- or not. At any rate, you'll never get published if you give up!

SP: What’s next for Theda and Musetta?

CS: Well, I don't want to give away too much – but Theda's connection to the cops is gone, so she's certainly more vulnerable now, isn't she?

Visit the author's web site at www.cleasimon.com .