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Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
by Jon Katz
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Synopses & Reviews Jon Katz is one of America's best-loved dog writers, and his keen insights into the animal world have earned him the title of Squire of Bedlam Farm. His new memoir Dog Days: Dispatches from Bedlam Farm allows us to live our dreams of leaving the city for the country, and shares the unpredictable adventure of farm life. From little Jesus (the newborn donkey who becomes the farm mascot) to the surprisingly sociable steer Elvis (weighing in at 2,500 pounds) and his comparatively svelte sweetheart, Luna, the creatures at Bedlam Farm find new ways to challenge Katz, who writes, "The perfect life is like the perfect dog: Neither exists. And joy is a fraction of the experience of owning a farm."
Riding herd on the entire place is Rose, the workaholic border collie. Not even Rupert, the ram, can intimidate her. As for Pearl and Clementine, the Labs, their work is chomping down food (however revolting), tearing through the woods, and finding laps to snuggle on. The sheep, the chickens, and the cat all contribute to the hum (and occasional roar) of Bedlam. So do the vet, the carpenter, and the animals' tender-hearted nursemaid. Last but not least there's Izzy, the abandoned border collie, who, if all goes well, may soon become a Bedlam star.
In spite of the aches and pains brought on by his demanding lifestyle and days when Bedlam Farm truly lives up to its name (like the day Elvis pulled the fence down), the author is sustained in all he does by his wife, Paula. And on timeless summer days and in punishing winter storms, he continues his meditation on what animals can selflessly teach us—and what we in turn owe to them.
With good neighbors, a beautiful landscape, and tales of true love thrown in, Dog Days gives us not only down-to-earth animal stories told in Katz's inimitable style, but a rich portrait of the harmonious world that is Bedlam Farm. Review: "There's no denying that Jon Katz writes engagingly about animals. In 'Dog Days,' the most recent dispatch in a series chronicling life on his Bedlam Farm in Upstate New York, we are treated to warmly drawn tales about Rose, Izzy, Clementine and Pearl, the dogs; Elvis and Luna, the cows; Lulu, Fanny, Jeannette and baby Jesus (Spanish pronunciation), the donkeys; Mother, the cat; Winston, the rooster; ... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Rumsfeld and Rupert, the rams; and a particularly beguiling ewe called Number 57. We also are given a glimpse of what remains of rural life in America, where none of the locals owns an umbrella, where they gather at Bea's restaurant on Main Street to engage in the daily 'Grunt and Grumble,' where the hours are long and the rewards insufficient, but where a storm or a lost animal is an opportunity for a neighbor to turn into a hero — and, nine out of 10 times, he does. When you call a large rural vet clinic, the dispatcher will ask you whether your animals have names or numbers. It is a shorthand way to determine whom the dispatcher is dealing with: a 'real' farmer who can't afford to personify his stock, or someone like Katz, who is new to country life and has another way to make a living. (He named one ram after the secretary of defense and another after a testosterone-heavy town across the state line.) A New Jersey suburbanite turned gentleman farmer, Katz struggles to find the middle ground between running a healthy, balanced farm and providing a halfway house for the sick, the maimed and the homeless. He fights with a failing back, a crumbling barn, frigid winters and suffocating summers, his own moodiness and two Labs that won't stop eating dead things and throwing up all over the house. He swells with all-out-of-proportion pride when a 'real' farmer compliments his fences or when four active and elderly ladies make visiting his farm part of their annual retreat. Anyone who has ever loved an animal, who owns a farm or even dreams of it, will read 'Dog Days' with appreciation and a cathartic lump in his or her throat. And yet the book suffers greatly from the absence of an editorial eye that might have slashed some repetitions. And Katz's hobbyhorse, his insistence that animals are not capable of understanding and do not possess complicated emotions, is back again in this volume ad nauseam, becoming increasingly ridiculous as each story unfolds to prove exactly the reverse: as Pearl the Lab visits patients in physical therapy, knowing instinctively exactly whom she can help and how; as Rose the border collie reads Katz's mind hourly, understanding a command as complex as 'avoid-the- donkeys-tame-the-ram-then- go-bring-the-sheep-down-to-me-just-to-show-him-that-you-can' with nothing more to go on than a nod and the opening of a gate; as Izzy, his young, troubled working dog, patiently and efficiently teaches Katz that his anger is not serving him; as the donkey asks to die; as the cow falls in love; as Clem, the other Labrador, does her best to satisfy all the needs of two very needy humans at once. 'Dog Days' ends with an entirely unearned emotional crescendo in which the author's wife — who has spent most of the years he's been on the farm still immersed in her urban, work-driven life back in New Jersey — is finally able to make herself comfortable on the farm. I found myself turning back to the dedication — 'For Bruce Tracy (God help me if the stuff he took out had stayed in).' And then to the epigraph from former Bush aide Matthew Scully: 'Animals have always awakened something in me — their little joys and travails alike — that, try as I might, I find impossible to express except in the language of devotion. Maybe it is the Lord's way of getting through to the particularly slow and obstinate, but if you care about animals you must figure out why you care.' One can't help wishing that instead of once again simply denying animals their emotional complexity (which the author can do only by defining his terms in the most limited way and in a language developed by human beings), Katz had entered into a dialogue with Scully. Since there is no doubt that Katz is devoted to his animals, he might have wrestled more vigorously with the question: Why?" Reviewed by Carolyn See, who may be reached at www.carolynsee.comDavid Anthony Durham, whose most recent novels are 'Acacia' and 'Pride of Carthage'Patrick Anderson, whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers(at)aol.com.Pam Houston, the author of 'Cowboys Are My Weakness' and 'Waltzing the Cat', Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)Review: "Anyone who loves animals or country life, but maybe can't have a pet or actually live in the country, will find Katz a perfect armchair companion." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Review: "Despite the book's title, there's more here than dog stories....An appealing text showing off an author who's found his perfect genre. Readers can only hope these appealing and thoughtful dispatches will continue." Kirkus Reviews Review: "A must-read for all animal lovers." Booklist About the Author Jon Katz has written sixteen books — six novels and ten works of nonfiction — including A Dog Year, The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, The New Work of Dogs, Katz on Dogs, and A Good Dog. A two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, he writes columns about dogs and rural life for the online magazine Slate, and has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, GQ, and the AKC Gazette. He co-hosts an award-winning show, Dog Talk, on Northeast Public Radio. Katz lives on Bedlam Farm in upstate New York with his wife, Paula Span, and his dogs, sheep, steers and cow, donkeys, barn cat, irritable rooster Winston, and three hens.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781400064045
- Subtitle:
- Dispatches from Bedlam Farm
- Author:
- Katz, Jon
- Publisher:
- Villard Books
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Agriculture & Animal Husbandry
- Subject:
- Dogs - General
- Subject:
- Dogs
- Subject:
- Farm life
- Subject:
- Essays
- Subject:
- Farmers & Ranchers
- Copyright:
- 2007
- Publication Date:
- June 2007
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Language:
- English
- Illustrations:
- Y
- Pages:
- 273
- Dimensions:
- 8.44x5.84x.91 in. .96 lbs.
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