Dog Days Of Summer (and Famous Fiction Writers)

Happy Summer Solstice and here’s a picture of my precious pooch adjusting to his new adobe digs. To his credit, the current putrid humidity and plethora of mosquitoes don’t seem to bother him much. But the ear-piercing thunderstorm we had this week did rattle the sweet boy, which seemed unfair occurring the day after he turned nine. So, also, happy birthday to Bodie. When you calculate that in dog years, we are roughly the same age. Perhaps as depressing as this steamy summer weather so far.

I’m still unpacking in said adobe, so when I take breaks I catch up on reading about the latest atrocities wrought by racist neofascists, and I’ve also been catching up on fiction reading, which they say is a great thing for writers to do when they’re not busy drafting that next novel.

And it would be, if I didn’t have a tendency to become distracted by wondering why famous fiction writers get away with faux paws (misspelling is deliberate here) that are a no-no for anyone else tackling any given genre. This particular peccadillo involves the neglect of a fictional dog. Hence, I have a bone (pun intended) to pick with John Grisham.

Granted, we’re talking about The Whistler, a book he published back in 2016, but still. Given he became uber-famous and prolific decades earlier. This thriller is billed as “riveting,” but let’s just say I found the first hundred or so pages a difficult slog. And not because of the canine conundrum.

What happened to the writing rule that says something needs to happen early on (as in the opening scene or at least the first few chapters, though Grisham’s are all tediously long) so as to not put your reader into the same coma that your female protagonist, Lacy Stolz, eventually ends up in?

But, back to the dog. We first learn of this pet on page 69, though precious little at that.  We are told that Ms. Stolz lives in a two-bedroom apartment where, “Lacy’s only companion was Frankie, her French bulldog.”

Not only is that all we learn about this dog, I soon concluded that Lacy (or at least Grisham) doesn’t give a damn about this supposed sole companion, despite her being happily single (kudos to Grisham on that, at least, because most folks don’t create women characters in their thirties who are). But what does this celebrated author (or his powerhouse publisher’s editors) have against dogs?

Why do I say that? Another fiction rule is (or ought to be) not introducing a character and then completely seeming to forget that they might need to make an appearance or be worthy of thought or action every once in while as the story moves along (or, in this case, the story slowly moves along at a painstaking pace).

When something horrific does finally happen on page 113, I’d already begun to wonder who was looking after Frankie when Lacy, a lawyer investigating corrupt judges for the state of Florida, spends many hours and a few overnight stays away from her apartment. But now Lacy is in the hospital in a coma after a deadly car wreck. Family members and co-workers arrive, with no mention of Frankie, home alone awaiting Lacy’s return.

Even worse—much, much worse—on page 122 we have Lacy’s boss getting the building manager to provide access to her apartment, not to take care of the dog, but merely to search for her phone and laptop. At which point Grisham gives us: “Frankie, her French bulldog, was yelping for food an water and had made a mess in the kitchen.”

Ya think? Why wouldn’t the poor dog be stressed out? The apartment manager says, “Okay, I’ll feed the damned thing while you guys hurry up.”

After this insult to injury, everyone leaves and Grisham never tells us who will be taking care of the dog while Lacy languishes in the ICU. WTF?

Oh, but it gets even worse. When Lacy emerges from the coma and begins to recover, not once does she express concern for the welfare of her dog—and let me tell you, that doesn’t make her a loveable or even likeable protagonist in my book.

After more than a week, Lacy is able to return to her apartment by page 164. Finally we learn that Simon, her British neighbor, had been taking care of Frankie, the Frenchie (why Grisham needs to tell us three times that he’s a French bulldog without ever revealing any other detail about him is also absurd—and bad writing, period). Also, I wanted to strangle Grisham at this point. Why make a reader worry by delaying a critical detail like that? Good effing grief.

Why bother giving your protagonist a pet companion if you’re going to completely ignore its existence? Because aside from Frankie “softly growling”  just once at a visitor, there is nary a mention of the dog’s reaction or interaction with anyone else—including Lacy, upon entering that apartment. Ever. It makes absolutely no sense. And it makes the main character look like a heartless jerk who shouldn’t have a pet.

Can I just say that, in my Other Worldly novels, one of the major sources of angst for protagonist Rowan Layne is the safety of her critters, as in my critters, Bodie and Morris? I mean, has Grisham never owned a dog or known a nice person who does? Although, there is another secondary character he introduces, a male dating interest for Lacy in the form of her physical therapist helping her recover from her injuries. And then…we never hear of him again when a new male comes along so what was the point?

The Whistler does pick up its pace and become less depressing and more intriguing about halfway into the story, but it also suffers from a massive helping of “telling not showing”(another huge fiction no-no), including the entire wrap up of the major conflict. It turns out that Lacy Stolz is actually a likeable character you tend to champion, despite the rampant dog neglect, so once again perhaps she shouldn’t have been a pet owner.

When I bought this book, it was billed as book one of two. So I went looking for book two upon its completion earlier this week. I wondered, would The Judge’s List, published six years later in 2022 and also featuring Lacy Stolz, include Frankie? After all, the action takes place five years later and we never learned the age of this…French bulldog…in The Whistler. Would Grisham have Lacy treat her sole companion any better this time around?

The Judge’s List starts at a far brisker pace than The Whistler. But I had to stop reading last night in utter disgust upon reaching the beginning of chapter 3 at page 30, when we’re told this regarding Lacy Stolz:

“She lived alone, at least most of the time, with Frankie, her obnoxious French bulldog. The dog was always waiting at the door, turning flips to urinate in the flower beds, regardless of the hour.”

Seriously, Grisham? A dog is obnoxious because it desperately needs to pee due to a lawyer owner who is rarely there and can’t be bothered to insure that he has someone to care for him? Would you rather he pee in the house than on the flower beds that the poor dog can’t access without a human’s help?

If I wanted to read about monsters who hate dogs, there’s plenty of that coming from Republican fascists like the current cosplaying sick joke of a South-Dakota-sadistic, puppy-killing psycho helming the Department of Homeland Security.

I’d like my fiction to a be a tad more dog friendly than that. But calling Frankie obnoxious in The Judge’s List was all I needed to answer my canine questions about The Whistler. If a dog is obnoxious, one doesn’t have to show concern for its welfare. Got it. I just wish I hadn’t gotten the second book. But you can be sure I’ll be taking notes about how Frankie is treated in the rest of the story.