Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [102]
Chapter 37
At last, a pack of his own. With the First One, Liz, they had been a majestic pair and he had steadied her wild course. But they were cut off from others, isolated. Who can say why he had not been able to save her. He could no more answer that than know why the lives of dogs were a brief flash of light compared to the great expanse of human life.
How strange that humans live on and on while dogs move in and out of their lives like seasons. Even stranger is that humans cannot hear or smell all that surrounds them and all that they themselves announce through their hairless flesh.
He felt the formation of his pack grow daily. The cat pressing against his backside, the New One settling into this place muscle by muscle, the girl eating bits of food, the old one healing from the injury that he had long known was there from the scent of infection deep within her. And the others who circle his pack with the watchful eyes of friends: the man with the limp who looks at the New One with longing, or the old dark man who stands sentinel over the island.
But in this life, he is dog. His life is ocean, stick, ball, sand, grass, ride in the truck, sleep by the bed, look deep into the eyes of humans, lure them outdoors, greet them with a burst of joy when they come home, love them. Fill this brief life with more. And more.
A+ AUTHOR INSIGHTS, EXTRAS, & MORE…
FROM
JACQUELINE
SHEEHAN
AND
AVON A
ABOUT THE BOOK
Inspiration for Lost & Found
Lost & Found is a profound departure from my first book, Truth, a novel about Sojourner Truth, the courageous nineteenth-century slave and abolitionist. It took five years to write Truth because of the enormous amount of research that I had to do and in order to present the true essence of her character. Because I admired Sojourner Truth so deeply, I felt like my feet were constantly held to the fire. During this time period, I periodically took breaks from my historical novel to give voice to the wonderfully flawed and irreverent Rocky and the character for my next book was born. In the stories and snippets that I wrote about Rocky, she was always drawn to bow hunting and she was always in love with her husband. At some point I asked the heartless question that authors often ask about their characters, which is, what if Rocky lost the thing that was most important to her? And for Rocky, that was her husband.
Truth required that I dive into another culture, another time. I wanted Rocky to come primarily from my own experiences and from our contemporary world. My world has been driven by psychology; it is a rich and satisfying world that gives me endless insight into the motivation of people and the resilience of the human spirit. Psychology was my training ground for fiction, and likewise, I often urge clients in counseling to use writing as a way to tap into a deeper and wiser side of themselves.
Is this autobiographical?
No and yes. No, this is fictional, and yes, Rocky is a psychologist and so am I. Yes, I was once a lifeguard, but only for one summer and I wasn’t a terribly good one. And, yes, I was called on to perform CPR and the victim did not survive. And yes, I have known and loved two of the most extraordinary dogs, both of whom would have stood in front of a racing train to save the ones they loved.
Do your life experiences with loss influence the tragedy in Rocky’s life?
Death is a major character in this book and death has been a major character in my life. When I was nine years old, my father died suddenly from a massive heart attack. People did not talk much about the impact of loss back then and I was simply expected to go back to school and continue on as if nothing had happened. He died in mid-June and I don’t recall the summer at all except that the sky was constantly gray. In the fall, I started fourth grade with a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Vivien Tarbox. She informed us that we would be studying science and the arts. I selected an unlikely author, Edgar Allan Poe, and spent the year reading everything he ever wrote.