by Garth Stein, 2008
Precious book! Told by Enzo the dog. Set in Seattle. Enzo is a yellow lab mix raised from a puppy by Denny Swift, a race car driver. They are both incredible “people” – the best. Denny marries Eve and they have Zoe. Eve gets sick – brain cancer – and moves in with her parents – the Evil Twins – on Mercer Island. They also keep Zoe. Denny tries to take Zoe back after Eve dies but they sue for custody. Denny hires a lawyer. Then the Evil Twins have Denny arrested for felony rape. A 15 year-old cousin of Eve’s actually tried to seduce Denny but he refused, and is now accusing Denny of rape at the manipulation of the Evil Twins. They try to ruin Denny’s life – he can’t leave the state so his promising racing career dies, they drag things out so all his money goes to pay for the lawyer. They sue him for child support. They offer him a settlement – sign for “misdemeanor harassment and probation; no sex offense on your record.” No more child support. He gets to see Zoe more often. The Evil Twins can support her and pay for her college. He can resume his racing career. He’s getting ready to sign and his best friend, Mike, hands him a pen – it is from a zoo and there is a zebra sliding in liquid at the top of the pen. Enzo sees it – he has had run-ins with zebra-demon – Zoe’s stuffed zebra tormented him once when he was left by Eve accidentally for 3 days in the house. He hallucinates and sees the zebra doing terrible things to Zoe’s other toys. When they come home (Denny was at a race – Eve got very sick and went to her parents with Zoe – leaving Enzo alone for 3 days in the house) the zebra is in shreds on Zoe’s floor. It was her favorite. Since then, the zebra demon represents succumbing to evil to Enzo. Enzo sees the zebra in the pen and realizes that if Denny signs those papers, as Denny knows inside, it is evil. Enzo grabs the papers with his mouth and leaps through a screened window in Mike’s house and tries to bury them in Mike’s back yard and finally lifts his leg and pees all over them.
Mike, Denny’s best friend, says “Call Lawrence. He’ll print them again and you can sign them.” Denny stood. “No,” he said, “I’m with Enzo. I piss on their settlement, too. I don’t care how smart it is for me to sign it. I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not giving up. I’m never giving up.”
So, he holds fast and they go to trial and everyone believes that he raped the 15 yr old Annika until the last day of trial. Annika ends up telling the truth. She recanted – they dropped the charges!
A few months before the trial, Denny and Enzo were walking and they see Annika (the 15-yr old) sitting at an outdoor cafe with a friend. She’s now 18. Denny walks over to her, sits down with Enzo, and tells her, “I may have given you signals. That’s totally my fault…But, you know, I wasn’t available. I was married to Eve. And you were far too young. But, Annika, while I understand how angry you must be, I wonder if you understand what’s going on, what the fallout is. They won’t let me have my daughter…Annika, when I saw Eve for the first time, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t walk…My entire world revolved around her…It never could have worked between you and me. There are a million reasons. My daughter, my age, your age, Eve. In a different time, a different place? Maybe. But not now. Not three years ago…But one day you will find someone who stops the world for you as Eve stopped the world for me…Zoe’s my daughter. I love her like your father loves you. Please, Annika, don’t take her away from me.”
“I think she heard me,” he said.
“I thought so, too, but how could I respond? I barked twice. He looked at me and laughed. “Faster?” he asked. I barked twice again. “Faster, then,” he said. “Let’s go!” and we trotted the rest of the way home.
So, Enzo keeps Denny from signing away his life. Denny holds fast in the face of insurmountable odds, wins, and goes on to be a successful test driver for Ferrari in Italy! Enzo was going to go with him and Zoe but the day Zoe was going to move back in with them, Enzo dies. He had bad hip dysplasia and was old by then. He came to the kitchen. Denny is making him pancakes for the first time in years – Enzo’s favorite food – gives a pancake to Enzo but it drops out of his mouth. Enzo collapses and Denny pets him and holds him and says it’s okay, you can go, and loves him until he dies – passing to fields of green where he can run and play in the sun.
A few years later, Denny is a champion in Italy and Zoe drives up in a golf cart with a father and son. Fans of Denny. The son’s name is “Enzo” and he wants to be a race-car driver when he grows up. Enzo the dog always said he’d be reincarnated as a man.
What a beautiful, funny, wonderful, poignant book!