Wagging the Dog

Kevin Kling, Patricia Hampl, Winona LaDuke all love dogs, and have written about their affection in two new books coming out this month.

The Nature of Dogs
Simon & Schuster, 2007. 176 pages, $35

The Nature of Dogs, a new book published by Simon & Schuster, includes essays from three prominent Minnesota writers: Patricia Hampl, Winona LaDuke, and Kevin Kling. With photographs by Mary Ludington, this project can best be described as an artsy, coffee-table–style book that celebrates the many roles dogs play in the lives of people—friend, companion, protector, entertainer, et cetera—as well as the variety of personalities represented by the different breeds.

The essays are short, but they provide a meditative framework for the rest of the book. Kevin Kling’s “Embracing Ferocity” recounts the many dogs he has known and loved, particularly his dachshunds, or “wiener dogs,” and his childhood dog Charger, “a mutt with claims to all seven dog groups.” Winona LaDuke delivers a short history of dogs in Native American life, where canines have been living and working side by side with humans for millennia. Patricia Hampl’s foreword is a bittersweet ode to our natural love for dogs, who are not just animals, but fellow “beings” with whom we share our lives.

This is an unusually beautiful book that, in both the writing and photography, seeks to illuminate the inner spirit of the individual breeds, rather than provide much information about them beyond a brief history. Mary Ludington’s evocative photography is really the centerpiece of the book. If you love dogs, and have a coffee table, this book was made for you.

The Dog Says How
By Kevin Kling, Borealis Books, Minnesota Historical Society Press. 224 pages, $22.95

Kevin Kling’s new book, The Dog Says How, isn’t about dogs per se, but they do show up frequently as characters in his humorous, quirky stories—and they bring with them a quiet dignity that the human beings in his tales don’t necessarily possess. There’s Huckleberry, the basset hound who follows the milkman and licks everyone’s butter if they don’t bring in their delivery right away.  There’s Charger, a family mutt who “wasn’t very smart, or if he was he hid it masterfully.” In the title story, a basset hound’s lack of success at squirrel-hunting serves as a metaphor for the struggle and frustration of everyday life.

The book is similar to Kling’s theater performances in that it is a collection of loosely related stories—twenty-nine of them—based on real-life experiences growing up and living in Minnesota. Individually, the stories are entertaining vignettes, engagingly told—but, like Kling’s live performances, their moral and intellectual weight gradually accumulates as you read them—slowly and almost imperceptibly crafting what amounts to a thoughtful philosophical narrative on the unlikely theme of extraordinary ordinariness. Mom. Dad. Brother. Dogs. Summer vacations. Sea monkeys. They’re all here, and they all play an important role in the artist Kling has become—one who finds comedy in tragedy with the best of them.

“Long before there was Jackass: The Movie, there was me and my brother,” one story begins. It’s a funny line, until you remember that the first story of the collection is called “Accident,” in which Kling recounts the motorcycle crash that almost killed him. The crash and its aftermath surface in several places, but Kling only lingers on the morbid long enough to remind you that it’s there. The final story, “The Dog Says How,” is about something that happened to him while he was trying out some voice-recognition software for his computer—a trial made necessary because the crash impaired the use of his arm.

It helps to have seen Kling perform live, but you won’t enjoy the book any less if you haven’t. The book just makes you want to go out and buy some tickets to his next show.