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Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog
by Emily Dean
New beginnings tend to come from hard places,
and Emily Dean found herself in one of the hardest
possible places – first, losing her beloved sister to
cancer, and then seeing both her parents die within
the space of three years.
Her memoir makes no attempt to disguise the
rocky matter ahead: “This is a story about losing
an entire family and gaining a dog,” she announces
at the start. “But then you’ve probably already
guessed that. As spoiler titles go, this one is up
there with that film The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford.”
What is a surprise, though, is that a book about
devastating loss can prove to be so hopeful and
affirming. “When you wake up one day with
nothing, in a sense you have everything. What
if you could start your life over again?” And that,
ultimately, is what Dean does, with the help of
a mongrel called Giggle, and a Shih Tzu “who
looked like the star of a film called Chewbacca –
The Early Years”. Her dogs help her break through
the “prickly defensiveness” that grief has put up
around her, and find both joy with them and
connection with other people.
Dogs have a particular importance to Dean,
because when she was growing up, the idea of
“a dog family” stood for everything her own family5 brilliant books
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was not. “Dog families” had dippy eggs for tea
at 5pm and watched Blue Peter. The Deans had
leftovers from last night’s dinner party for
breakfast, and entertainment came in the form
of her parents’ bohemian friends: actors, novelists
and intellectuals. Glamour came as trade-off for
stability. The family moved often, dodging the
demands of bailiffs and landlords, and there could
be no room for anything so bourgeois as a dog
in such a setup.
Dean’s stories of her family fizz with drama,
gossip – and love, because it is very clear that
however exhausting life as a Dean could sometimes
be, she holds all three of them in deep affection.
There’s also a rich and bruising honesty when it
comes to the cruel business of bereavement, which
anyone who has been through similar experiences
will find cathartically familiar. But above all, this is
a book about recovery. Second chances can spring
even in the wreckage of grief, and sometimes
second chances look like two flurries of fur with
very pink tongues. (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99)creativity
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