Why do writers love dogs? Not always for the same reasons all the rest
of us do. Dorothea Benton Frank's dog Henry teaches her about
self-righteous indignation every time she leaves on a book tour. Ron
Rash learns to appreciate his misanthropic mutt Pepper after he bites
his daughter's suitor. For Tommy Hays the dog is something not even a
psychic can separate from the family. For some writers, such as Mary
Alice Monroe, a Bernese Mountain dog arrives via Swiss Air. For George
Singleton, they just wander into his Pickens County yard. The connection
between dogs and humans in the geographic region known as South Carolina
goes back over 10,000 years. There's even a wild dog in the Lowcountry
known as the Carolina Dog, whose ancestors may have accompanied the
first Americans across the Bering ice bridge. In Literary Dogs & Their
South Carolina Writers twenty-five of the Palmetto State's most beloved
authors introduce you to their most memorable dogs. There is Padgett
Powell's Ode to Spode, Josephine Humphreys' paean to a poodle, and Roger
Pinckney's Daufuskie Dog-ageddon. Meet Marshall Chapman's Impy, Mindy
Friddle's Otto, Beth Webb Hart's Bo Peep, and more. From bird dogs to
bad dogs, wild dogs to café dogs, get to know these canines and their
literary companions.
