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A Good Hare Day Like No Other
A finalist for a major book award shows how to tell a great story about an animal that’s stolen your heart (and not just at Easter)
True stories of animals are among the easiest — and hardest — to write. They’re easy because they all but hand you a plot. Animals are always up to something, and often you only need to observe them closely to have the makings of a colorful essay or memoir.
But if a creature steals your heart, it can be hard to see it in perspective, or to gain the literary distance you need to describe its behavior in ways that will bring it to life for your readers.
John Grogan gave one example of how to do it in Marley & Me, his blockbuster memoir-turned-movie of his life with an over-the-top golden retriever. Like a lot of dogs, Marley chewed up furniture, stole food from the kitchen counter, and ignored commands he disliked. And if Grogan had described only that kind of behavior, his book might have gone nowhere.
What lifted Marley & Me above the ordinary was that Grogan paid attention to what his dog did that others didn’t. Marley ate part of his wife’s pregnancy test and took his vitamin pill more readily if you dropped it on the floor and pretended he wasn’t supposed to have it, among his many idiosyncrasies.
