Review by Booklist Review
It's not a spoiler to say that two of the three "wild" dogs mentioned in the title of YA author Zusak's (The Book Thief, 2006) first foray into nonfiction do not make it to the end of the book. After all, Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is the story of how these dogs shaped Zusak and his family in all their chaotic, loving, insistent, and even violent glory. Indeed, the act of saying goodbye is tied intimately into this journey. Zusak's garrulous style gives appropriate spotlight to his furry subjects (a few cats are involved too), celebrating their indomitable spirits in a convivial, all-but-exasperated tone. It is appropriate in Zusak's hands, then, that Reuben and Archer (and eventually present day's Frosty) would be at home as centerpiece characters in a madcap novel, replete with chases, general destruction, and, yes, some injuries (both animal and human). Zusak's innate humor jostles readers throughout, creating a wholly different page-turning experience from the epic nature of his fiction. Dog lovers will surely find a lot to chew on here as Zusak mines for the truth the title intimates that those touched by a dog will all agree: we are changed for having known them.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this heartrending memoir, novelist Zusak (The Book Thief) recounts his family's love affair with three rowdy rescue dogs: Reuben, Archer, and Frosty. Writing after the last of the three died, Zusak--on the advice of his wife, Mika--processes his grief on the page, beginning with the couple's adoption of Reuben in 2009 and ending with Archer's death in 2021. In the middle is a hilarious and occasionally harrowing tale of how not to train incorrigible canines; Zusak's dogs bite a piano teacher, break the author's knee, and, in one particularly upsetting section, kill the family cat. Zusak offsets all the mayhem with poignant passages about more peaceful times with the animals, during which he wrote novels, played with his children, and ran on the beach with the dogs, "just us and rawest water." When it's time to chronicle each one's death, Zusak pulls no punches, conveying the depths of misery that come with seeing a pet to the end of its life. With a soft heart and a fluid pen, Zusak delivers an elegy for three misfit creatures that will resonate even with those who've never picked up a leash. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Jan.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Life with four-legged mischief-makers. In his first work of nonfiction, Zusak, the Australian author of the novelsThe Book Thief andThe Messenger, offers a glimpse of his private life in Sydney, where his family has lived in thrall, as he would tell it, to the parade of highly idiosyncratic animals that have shared their home. Zusak's daughter, Kitty, "loved all animals" but "especially gravitated to dogs." When she turned three, Reuben entered their lives, a four-month-old puppy with brindle fur and "just-got-out-of-jail" energy. The first year was idyllic, but when Reuben reached adulthood, he began to have sudden bouts of aggression, just in time for Zusak's second child to be born, this one a boy. When Reuben lunged at the newborn, Zusak and his wife knew that they were in for trouble. But they also couldn't abandon their daughter's best friend, so instead they closely monitored. No one was more surprised than the author when, in 2011, he and his wife acquired a second dog, "blond" and "handsome" Archer, who started out as Zusak's in-laws' foster pup. Soon, Archer and Reuben were a "two-dog mafia," best friends, up to all sort of hijinks, including killing a possum and, later, the family's cat. The memoir takes a somber turn; Zusak writes in moving detail about Reuben's battle with cancer and the eventual death of both dogs, a "seismic loss." The "dogless life" proved too quiet for the family, so less than a year after Archer's death came Frosty, the star of the book's epilogue. Zusak is an affable, appealing narrator, prone to digressions. In the final portion of the book, his grief is palpable. A self-deprecating tale of dog-ownership mayhem that is sure to win over many a reader. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
