Wonderful New Book -- Drinking With Miss Duchie, a Memoir by Ed Breslin
February 27, 2011||Special to the Los Angeles Times By SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS
"Her absence is the greatest presence in my life," writes Ed Breslin of the dog who saved him from so many of his demons. In April 1994, Breslin brought Miss Dutchie, a lab puppy, home as a present for his wife, Lynn. The love that this larger-than-life Irishman had (and has) for the dog he and his wife lived and played with for 12 1/2 years transformed him. Not only did Miss Dutchie's distaste for cigarette smoke help him quit, but her flair for fun chased away an old and lumbering darkness in his soul — perhaps the result of being one of 12 children and not getting enough affection, perhaps the result of a career in the collapsing world of publishing. It was a darkness that 34 years of therapy could not dispel. But from the moment Breslin turned his considerable tenderness on this little wailing puppy, life was different. Breslin writes with an elegant simplicity, still raw from Miss Dutchie's death (he begins this memoir just four weeks after he and Lynn are forced to euthanize his ailing "girlfriend"). The book is a sweet, sad tribute to that purest of all relationships."
"Her absence is the greatest presence in my life," writes Ed Breslin of the dog who saved him from so many of his demons. In April 1994, Breslin brought Miss Dutchie, a lab puppy, home as a present for his wife, Lynn. The love that this larger-than-life Irishman had (and has) for the dog he and his wife lived and played with for 12 1/2 years transformed him. Not only did Miss Dutchie's distaste for cigarette smoke help him quit, but her flair for fun chased away an old and lumbering darkness in his soul — perhaps the result of being one of 12 children and not getting enough affection, perhaps the result of a career in the collapsing world of publishing. It was a darkness that 34 years of therapy could not dispel. But from the moment Breslin turned his considerable tenderness on this little wailing puppy, life was different. Breslin writes with an elegant simplicity, still raw from Miss Dutchie's death (he begins this memoir just four weeks after he and Lynn are forced to euthanize his ailing "girlfriend"). The book is a sweet, sad tribute to that purest of all relationships."
Barnes & Noble @ 86th & Lexington in New York
