She looks at me for a moment, our eyes locked on each other. Two of the octopus’s arms hang down her face like chin straps. “We don’t have to include Chris Pratt, it was just a suggestion,” she says. I have a good view of it, as Lily and I are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, each with a pillow, me sitting Indian style, her perched more like the MGM lion. It’s not often you see an octopus up close, let alone in your living room, let alone perched on your dog’s head like a birthday party hat, so I’m immediately taken aback. It’s when Lily suggests offhandedly we also include Chris Pratt that I notice the octopus. And finally the Bradleys, Cooper and Milton, the latter of whom is technically way older and long dead and I’m not sure why my dog keeps bringing him up other than she loves board games, which we usually play on Fridays.Īnyhow, this particular Thursday we are discussing the Chrises: Hemsworth and Evans and Pine. We go back and forth between Bomer and Damon and Brady and Hardy depending on what kind of week it has been. FILL-a-pea? Fill-AH-pay? Also because he doesn’t work that much anymore.) Then there’s the Matts and the Toms.
(We dropped Phillipe years ago over a disagreement as to how to pronounce his name.
I’m a Gosling man, whereas she’s a Reynolds gal, even though she can’t name a single movie of his that she would ever watch twice. I say this about our ages because we’re both a little immature and tend to like younger guys. I’m forty-two, which is two hundred and ninety-four in dog years-but like a really young two hundred and ninety-four, because I’m in pretty good shape and a lot of people tell me I could pass for two hundred and thirty-eight, which is actually thirty-four.
She’s twelve in actual years, which is eighty-four in dog years. I know that it’s Thursday because Thursday nights are the nights my dog, Lily, and I set aside to talk about boys we think are cute. And grab a tissue: “THERE! WILL! BE! EYE! RAIN!” (New York Newsday). “Startlingly imaginative.this love story is sure to assert its place in the canine lit pack.Be prepared for outright laughs and searing or silly moments of canine and human recognition. Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one. Introducing a dazzling and completely original new voice in fiction and an unforgettable hound that will break your heart-and put it back together again. By turns hilarious and poignant, an adventure with spins into magic realism and beautifully evoked truths of loss and longing, Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all. When Lily’s health is compromised, Ted vows to save her by any means necessary.
Ted-a gay, single, struggling writer is stuck: unable to open himself up to intimacy except through the steadfast companionship of Lily, his elderly dachshund. A national bestseller combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, “ Lily and the Octopus is the dog book you must read this summer” ( The Washington Post).