Seven books about deep human-animal connections

Lauren Acampora is the author of The Animal Room, The Hundred Waters, The Paper Wasp, and The Wonder Garden. Her work has won or been nominated for the GLCA New Writers Award, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Story Prize, and the New England Book Award, and she’s been named an Artist Fellow in Fiction by The New York Foundation for the Arts. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The Paris Review, One Story, and The New York Times Book Review and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories.

At Lit Hub the author tagged "seven standout works of fiction that illuminate the inextricable links we share with our animal compatriots." One title on the list:

Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

Although this novel is already widely celebrated with its own movie adaptation, I can’t offer a list of books about humans and animals without it. Nunez offers a beautifully insightful and moving account of a solitary writer in Manhattan who inherits a massive Great Dane from her friend who has died by suicide. After she reluctantly agrees to steward him in her tiny studio apartment that does not allow pets, woman and dog find a bond in their shared mourning for their lost friend. Echoing the disorientation of grief, the novel doesn’t take the form of a straightforward story, but rather a mosaic of flashbacks, anecdotes, and reflections. The narrator’s thoughts about literature and the purpose of art are interlaced with historical vignettes and moments of absurdity familiar to any writer or teacher, while she simultaneously navigates the unlikely and sometimes comical situation of sharing a tiny space and public life with a giant animal. An unforgettable, silent friendship arises between woman and dog as they lean on each other, literally and figuratively. The novel includes what is, in my opinion, one of the best lines ever written about human-animal companionship, and one of my favorite literary quotes ever: “What are we…if not two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other?”

Read about another book on the list.

The Friend is among Eliza Smith's twenty books to help you navigate grief.

--Marshal Zeringue