Book Review: PLEASE WRITE: A NOVEL IN LETTERS

Title: Please Write: A Novel In Letters

Author: J Wynn Rousuck

Publisher: Bancroft Press

Pages: 252

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Winslow, a genteel and formal Boston Terrier, has so far lived in a one-dog household with his humans, married couple Frank and Pamela. All is well until Frank brings home a lost puppy. When no one turns up to claim the pup, she is named Zippy, to the consternation of Winslow.

Along the way, Frank tries to fight alcohol addiction, Pamela begins to write a children’s book on Zippy and Grandma Vivienne pens a fun cookbook on doggie treats.

Grandma Vivienne is a fun version of Pamela’s mother, but the dogs don’t know that.

Like any regular family the dogs are caught up in their own business, unaware of what is plaguing the humans who face issues like alcohol addiction and miscarriage.

The letters are interspersed with recipes for doggie treats, encouraging Grandma Vivienne to write a cookbook on doggie treats.

 

For some reason, the book is set in the early 1990s. There was no point to this except that the author gets Grandma Vivienne to school the dogs on the war in Iraq and Bill Clinton and his cat, and George Bush’s dog, Millie.

At one point, Grandma Vivienne writes, “There is a big difference between bad countries and puppies who occasionally make teensy weensy bad choices.” Presumably the countries are bad because their choices are highly depraved, not teensy weensy bad.

I resented this line on so many levels. What gives the US to pronounce another country’s actions as bad? Why does the US take upon itself the task of policing the world? And what purpose did this schooling on America’s foreign policy serve in a book about dogs?

 

 The book begins with Winslow writing to Grandma Vivienne to tell her about the strange new puppy that has entered their home. He receives a letter from her. Thereafter while Winslow continues to write to Vivienne, giving her detailed information, she addresses her letters to Zippy, completely ignoring Winslow. That’s not fair.

For a long time, she writes only to Zippy. Then suddenly after 150 pages, she includes Winslow in the address, but only for three letters, then it is back to Zippy alone. I resented the slight against Winslow.

Once Zippy learns to read and write, we hear only from Zippy. I would have liked to hear more from Winslow. His voice was the more interesting, as opposed to Zippy’s crazy drivel, and yet it is the latter we get. In one of the letters, Winslow says of Zippy, “In dog years, she is now a teenager. In people years, she’s a toddler. I don’t know which is worse.”

 Again, Zippy has a celebration for three of her birthdays, but Winslow doesn’t rate even a single celebration. Vivienne is overly encouraging and supportive towards Zippy, and completely ignores Winslow.

Also, the fact that these dogs learn to read and write on their own and then type and mail letters without any human assistance is presented as a matter of fact, which defies plausible reasoning. I’ve read books where animals talk, but somehow it feels believable. Here, it didn’t.

 

I generally love epistolary novels, how they manage to capture the story and edge it forward. This one promised to be a delightful series of letters between a human grandmother in Cleveland, Ohio, and her canine grandbabies, including Winslow and the mixed breed Zippy, in Baltimore.

Sadly, the sense of delight began to wane within a few pages as there didn’t seem to be much of a plot, apart from getting Zippy to behave herself.

I’m not sure who the target reader for this book is. It couldn’t be adults, because there isn’t a plot to hold our interest. It couldn’t be children because there is so much that is force-fit into this book, including forced political references and information that no dog would be interested in, nor any child, for that matter. Grandma Vivienne uses her letters to give Zippy information about such random subjects as Halloween, Labour Day and even America’s two-party political system, among other things.

To make matters worse, the book ends up leaving the dogs high and dry, after the sudden death of Pamela’s mother, with no way to cope with their sudden grief. This would be traumatizing for young readers.

 

 (I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)