Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy
Dog, by Dave Barry* (Simon &
Schuster, 2019, 240 pages, $26)
If You Don’t Know Dave Barry, . . . .
If you read the syndicated
newspaper humor columns, if you read books (like Dave Barry Turns 40, Dave Barry Turns 50, Dave Barry Turns 60 or Dave Barry Turns 70), if you watch
movies, if you are from Florida, you probably know Dave Barry, that prolific
funnyman writer. Yes, that Dave Barry, the one in Wikipedia.
This year he turns
quasi-serious, at least on the front cover, with his old but lovely and happy dog
Lucy.
One would think this is a
dog book just because there is a dog on the cover and in the title. Ah, there’s
the rub: Barry can’t help but digress and his digressions are laugh-out-loud
funnies. But he does start to write about his beloved dog Lucy (and her
predecessors) before he gets side-tracked with story after story. At the end of
each chapter he realizes that the book is about the lessons Lucy taught him – eight
of them. (In the epilogue, he even grades himself on the lessons.)
Lessons like Lesson Four:
Let Go of Your Anger, unless it’s about something really important, which it
almost never is (with story after story to illustrate, between bouts of
laughter).
But Wait, There’s More!
After the final version of Lessons from Lucy was turned in to the
publisher, there was still another dog lesson for Barry – from his daughter
this time, a lesson Sophie learned from a hospital therapy dog named Clue.
 |
| Back Cover |
“I’ve Always Been a Dog Person”
Soon to be famous first
lines.
And so starts this book of
stories about the dogs of Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize Winner, and other funnies
along the way. You would think he would soon run out of stories that happened
to him but I guess not.
What Would We Like More Of?
Photos of Lucy and stories
of Lucy. I guess we’ll have to wait for Barry’s next book.
No comments:
Post a Comment