Daily Mail

BEST BOOKS ON... PETS

- Gill Hornby

THE bestsellin­g author suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life. WE ALL remember our first pet. Mine was a guinea pig, called Brownie — yes, he did happen to be brown — and I got him on my seventh birthday. I loved him. In fact, he was my first great love.

When you start to think of it, there are many great pets in literature.

Not so many guinea pigs, but the larger ones, the more independen­t mammals pop up rather often. As all pet lovers know, they are such characters and they tell us so much about ourselves.

Like Holly Golightly’s cat in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. He is, like so many of his species, an aloof individual and a symptom of her own rootlessne­ss. ‘We don’t belong to each other: he’s an independen­t and so am I.’

Her refusal to assume ownership of him represents her own fear of stability.

She then abandons him in a run- down area near the airport — a terrible crime. He is never seen again.

A sorry tale, but that’s cats for you. Dogs are the thing. Don’t write in, catlovers. I’m not interested.

In novels, as in life, when it comes to companions­hip, true love and connectedn­ess, the dog wins every time.

In Anne Tyler’s gorgeous The Accidental Tourist, Macon’s dog Edward is in a terrible state: badly behaved, unsettled. But then he’s reflecting his master’s own inner turmoil.

Macon’s just lost his son and split from his wife. It falls to Edward to brings Macon back together again. Through Muriel, the wacky doghandler, he discovers what really matters in life.

For Marcus, in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, the murder of Mrs Shear’s dog Wellington has enormous consequenc­es.

Marcus has Asperger’s and becomes the prime suspect. To prove his innocence, he starts his own investigat­ion and finds out truths about himself and the people around him.

Only when he gets his own puppy at the end do we know he’s going to be fine.

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