Dog Years: A Memoir

by Mark Doty

Book Overview

A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the YearWinner of the Israel Fishman-Stonewall Book Award for NonfictionTender and amusing. . . . Doty brilliantly captures the qualities that make dogs... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006117100X
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.9" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

Heart-wrenching read that will make you feel understood.

It took a couple chapters for me to "get into it", but boy, I sure did. A fresh, wonderfully written story on the highs of life and lows that follow as we learn to say goodbye to those we hold dear. Deeply personal and written the heart, Mark Doty will make it feel like he is right there with and understanding you. Have kleenex

From a cat lover

I'm not sure why I picked up this book in the first place...I'm a cat person and as I began to read "Dog Years" I was convinced that this would be a comparison read. But when, early on, author Mark Doty learns how to administer subcutaneous fluids to his beloved Beau, I was flooded with memories of having to do the same. From that point on I was hooked. "Dog Years" is, among other things, about connections...the most intimate kinds, of course. It is also about yin and yang, the pull of life tugged by the presence of death (and the loomingness of the latter). It is about philosophy and reality, poignancy and resignation, humor and grief. There is even Judy Garland mixed with more than a whiff of Joan Didion. Hope crosses with depression, as does love and separation. Yet it is the author's gift for finding just the right words and setting the right tone that makes this book such a glorious memoir. "Dog Years" is a complex and articulate work. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever lost a loved companion...it is that good.

A Man and His Dogs

Doty, Mark. "Dog Years: A Memoir", HarperCollins, 2007. A Man and His Dogs Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride Having a dog myself, I know how important my little Jack Russell, Sophie, is to me so I was really glad to see another gay man write down how he feels about his dog. Mark Doty, an award winning writer and poet explores with intelligence and great compassion the relationship between his dog and himself in "Dog Years: A Memoir". I have long been a fan of Doty's so when I saw this book I was very anxious to sit down and have myself a good read which is exactly what I did. He roped me during the first chapter and I sat riveted and reading for the entire next day. It is pure poetry combined with a great deal of intellectualism. What I love the most is the way which he shows how our canine pets teach us more about humanity than we could ever teach them about anything. Doty wrote from the point of view of the dog and he showed that dogs are not just pets and that they are with us during major life changes and minor happenings and are as affected by them as we are. This is a beautiful memoir and deals with grief and loss and the comfort that we receive from our dogs. Doty's two adopted pets--Beau, a Golden Retriever and Arden, a black retriever brought comfort to him when he needed it most. In the most convincing and persuasive manner he shows us that his dogs found him as important to them as he found them important to him. Doty has already made valuable contributions to the field of literature and when seeing a book about dogs written by him lets the reader know that he is in for a special treat. He deals with the relationship of humans to dogs but he also deals with grief and loss with wisdom and extreme grace. In fact even though the book is supposedly about dogs, I found it possible to suppose that it is equally about love and how to find pleasure in the minutest details of life. There were several times I had to stop and dry my eyes as well as laugh loudly. Doty has that kind of command of the language and emotion. This is quite simply a wonderful book and Doty manages to capture thought beautifully. While reading the section of Doty's experiences as his longtime companion died of AIDS and how Arden was the one that pulled Doty through the ordeal, I literally wept. The dog carried the grief so as to absolve Doty of some of the pain but Doty also says that the dog "carried his will to love". He regards his dogs as "secret heroes". And when the dogs begin to decline, the poet of Doty arises and handles the situations with true beauty. As he was lucky to have his dogs, they were that much luckier to have a master with such wisdom and compassion. This is unquestionably the most beautifully written book I have read in a long, long time. What a treasure we have in Mark Doty.

A Memoir From One of Our Best Poets

Mark Doty in DOG YEARS has written a sometimes sad and always deeply moving beautiful memoir about loss, grief and the comfort that animals, in this instance Beau, a golden retriever, and Arden, a black retriever, bring to the sick and dying and those who remain. Mr. Doty is nothing if not opinionated: sentimentality is a mask for anger; "compassion for animals is an excellent predictor of one's ability to care for one's fellow human beings;" "no death equals another;" "the wounds of loss, the nicks and cuts made by our own sense of powerlessness, must form a sort of carapace, an armor." The kindgom of heaven may be "the realm of paradox, "attachment and detachment," memory and forgetfulness, "everything and nothing." Whether you agree with Mr. Doty's conclusions hardly matters although he is convincing and persuasive. What is just as important is that the reader is swept along by the writer's precise and beautiful language. (We should expect no less from a first rate poet.) So on September 11 the hole in the north twin tower reminds him of "an unfamiliar continent in a school geography book. A version of Australia." New York is a "pierced city." An old woman who runs a kennel in Key West has a voice "shredded by decades of Chesterfields." An old house in Provincetown has "straggly irises" in the yard. Furthermore, Mr. Doty strews gems from the greatest of American poets, Emily Dickinson, throughout his narrative. Just as his canine friends overlook nothing on their daily scavenger hunts, Mr. Doty's reader must use the same care for he skims this book at his peril. Whether you are a dog lover or not, DOG YEARS is not to be missed. It is in the league of other recent nonfiction books on grief: Elizabeth Edwards' SAVING GRACES: FINDING SOLACE AND STRENGTH FROM FRIENDS AND STRANGERS, Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING and Calvin Trillin's ABOUT ALICE. It reminded me of another poet Wendell Berry's fine short story "Mike" about the death of a dog and is every bit as good as my favorite nonfiction book by Doty: STILL LIVE WITH OYSTERS AND LEMON; ON OBJECTS AND INTIMACY. Reading Mr. Doty is always a joy, regardless of his subject matter.

About dogs, the human condition and, uh, the dog condition

Those in the sad condition of not already being aware of Mr. Doty's splendid body of work may be tempted to overlook this book. Readers who know Mark Doty's work will already know that they are in for more than just another book about dogs. Last night in Harvard Square, I attended a reading by Mark Doty from this fine book. It turns out to be, of course, a set of meditations on dogs and their relationship with their owners, but also of grief and loss. No one writes about the latter with more grace and wisdom than Mark Doty. Last night, he reminded us, "The agreement to participate in this life is a pact with grief." This book is highly recommended.

More than a book about dogs

I don't even own a dog and I loved this book. It's about love and loss and finding joy in small moments. Doty is an amazing writer who can bring tears to your eyes and make you laugh out loud, all within the same page. Highly recommended--whether you're a pet owner or not!