Story Circle Network

Austin Chapter
Reader's Guide

December 2007

A Three Dog Life
Abigail Thomas

A wrenching, elegiac portrait of [Thomas'] third husband, Rich, who flounders in a miasmic present after a hit-and-run in their Manhattan neighborhood shatters his skull, destroys his short-term memory and consigns him to permanent brain trauma. A deft balance of fevered pathos and dark humor link this memoir, in spirit and theme, to Safekeeping, Thomas's collected vignettes that memorialize her second husband...

  1. Reread the epigraph of the book. What was the coldest night of your life? What "dogs" kept you warm?

  2. A Three Dog Life was selected as one of the Best Books of 2006 by the LA Times and the Washington Post. What happens in this book? Why is it so hard to figure this out?

  3. Harry is the first dog we meet in the book. Although he was the cause of her husband's accident, Thomas loves him. (Did that surprise you? What would you have done in a situation like that?) Rosie is a dachshund-whippet mix born from "a union that must have come with an instruction sheet," while the sometimes-in-heat hound, Carolina Bones, is "gangly and goofy, with a lugubrious expression that gave her a kind of ridiculous dignity." How do Harry, Rosie, and Carolina complement each other? What do they give Thomas that she can't get from people? If you're an animal person, what do you receive from your animals that you can't get elsewhere?

  4. This memoir isn't structured sequentially, so much as it is a series of vignettes. Which one is your favorite? What do you like about it? Which one did you find most difficult to read? Why?

  5. How would you describe Thomas' writing style? Choose one or two paragraphs that seem to you to be a good example of her style. What challenges does this style present to the reader? In what way is this style suited to the subject/theme of this book (or not, depending on how you view it)?

  6. The subject of memory is central to this book. What kind of memories does her husband lose? What characterizes her own recollections, from her earliest days with her parents to more recent memories? What does her husband's injury teach Thomas about the significance of memory in our lives?

  7. Reread the last chapter and think about the last sentence. In what way does memory both enrich and burden us?

  8. What do you remember that you would like to forget? What have you forgotten that you would like to remember?

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