Travels with Casey: My Journey through Our Dog-Crazy Country

New York Times Magazine writer Denizet-Lewis spent four months driving around America with his Labrador mix Casey to paint a portrait of Americans and their love affair with dogs. The result is an engaging account that covers the gamut, from aggressive dog owners at an NYC dog park, ruminations on how dogs get their names (a surprising number are named after Grateful Dead songs), San Franciscans who practice yoga alongside their dogs, and the curious Black Dog Syndrome, which makes it much harder for black dogs to get adopted from shelters. It’s not all sweet anecdotes and wagging tales: Denizet-Lewis has some hard questions for Ingrid Newkirk, head of PETA, regarding their high number of euthanizations, and his account of time spent in the euthanasia room at a shelter in Texas is rough going, but these and other stories are part of the picture as well, and each of Denizet-Lewis’s subjects are treated with compassion. Comparisons to John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley are obvious, but this is an entirely different and equally rewarding piece of work that expands with each page without losing its narrative thread or the reader’s interest. Agent: Todd Shuster, Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary. (July)