A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog [Hardcover]

Dean Koontz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

"In each little life we can see great truth and beauty, and in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe."

DEAN KOONTZ thought he had everything he needed. A successful novelist with more than twenty #1 New York Times bestsellers to his credit, Dean had forged a career out of industry and imagination. He had been married to his high school sweetheart, Gerda, since the age of twenty, and together they had made a happy life for themselves in their Southern California home. It was the picture of peace and contentment. Then along came Trixie.

Dean had always wanted a dog--had even written several books in which dogs were featured. But not until Trixie was he truly open to the change that such a beautiful creature could bring about in him. Trixie had intelligence, a lack of vanity, and an uncanny knack for living in the present. And because she was joyful and direct as all dogs are, she put her heart into everything--from chasing tennis balls, to playing practical jokes, to protecting those she loved.

A retired service dog with Canine Companions for Independence, Trixie became an assistance dog of another kind. She taught Dean to trust his instincts, persuaded him to cut down to a fifty-hour work week, and, perhaps most important, renewed in him a sense of wonder that will remain with him for the rest of his life. She mended him in many ways.

Trixie weighed only sixty-something pounds, Dean occasionally called her Short Stuff, and she lived less than twelve years. In this big world, she was a little thing, but in all the ways that mattered, including the effect she had on those who loved her, she lived a big life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Guest Reviewer: Ted Kerasote on Dean Koontz’s A Big Little Life
Ted Kerasote is the author of several books, including Out There, which won the National Outdoor Book Award; the national bestseller Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog; and Pukka: The Pup After Merle.

Anyone who has read Dean Koontz’s novels (my favorite is Watchers) knows that he can tell a gripping tale while being perceptive about dogs, an insight made more noteworthy by the fact that Koontz didn’t have a dog for the longest time. Finally in 1998 he and his wife Gerda corrected this omission by adopting Trixie, a Golden Retriever and trained assistance dog, who had been forced by elbow problems to retire in her third year of service. It was the happiest forced retirement imaginable--for Trixie, for the Koontzes, and for all of us who are now privileged to read Dean Koontz’s loving memoir of this remarkable being: A Big Little Life.

Like all great writers, Koontz has the ability to transform the ordinary--his daily life with Trixie--into the funny, the moving, and the sublime. Trixie’s accidentally gashing him while they play fetch turns into one of the great set pieces of medical comedy as Koontz ends up in the emergency room with a lacerated hand. On another occasion Trixie’s saying “baw” for “ball”--straining to say it, but saying it nonetheless--becomes a memorable recounting of all of our attempts to communicate with beings from another species. And Koontz’s simply watching Trixie move, her lithe golden body shimmering and flashing in the sun, takes on the quality of the divine as he expresses what so many of us have subconsciously thought about our own dogs: “The more I watched her, the more she seemed to be an embodiment of that greatest of all graces we now and then glimpse, from which we intuitively infer the hand of God.”

It is no exaggeration to say that Trixie was the hand of God for Koontz. He recounts his difficult childhood, his dysfunctional father, and the many challenges that he had to overcome on the road to becoming a world-famous novelist. But with that fame came commercial caution: telling stories in the same old familiar way and a consequent dulling of his creativity. Then came Trixie. With “baws” and balls, with warning him of fires and intruders in the house, with humor, with stoicism, and with unflinching love, she restored his diminished sense of wonder and impelled him toward taking new risks with narratives, themes, and characters, the very ones millions of us now enjoy.

“Some dog, huh?” he says.

“Some dog, yes,” we must agree, also concurring when he adds, “The only significant measure of your life is the positive effect you have on others.”

For all of us who have had our lives made better by our dogs, or for that matter by any loving being, A Big Little Life is a welcome reminder of the power of love to turn our hearts into mirrors, reflecting compassion back into the universe--as Trixie most surely did for Koontz and Koontz now does for us.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

“[A] love letter to his golden retriever.”—People

“Read this book to be entertained, uplifted and deeply moved.”—The Bark
 
“A humorous, poignant portrait of [a] remarkable dog.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“One dog book that everyone . . . will deeply enjoy.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“A delightful read. . . an unusually effective brief for the joy that dogs bring us.”—The American Spectator
 
“A tender, insightful, loving homage . . . an inspirational book of love, hope and humor.”—Bookreporter.com --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st Printing edition (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401323529
• ISBN-13: 978-1401323523
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in Pennsylvania where I graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University). When I was a senior in college, I won an Atlantic Monthly fiction competition and have been writing ever since. My first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where I was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-to-one basis. During my first day on the job, I discovered that the previous occupier of my position had been beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was filled with challenge but also tension, and I was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. I wrote nights and weekends, which I continued to do after leaving the poverty program and going to work as an English teacher in a suburban school district outside Harrisburg. After a year and a half in that position, my wife, Gerda, made me an offer I couldn't refuse: "I'll support you for five years," she said, "and if you can't make it as a writer in that time, you'll never make it." By the end of those five years, Gerda had quit her job to run the business end of my writing career. Gerda and I, along with our dog, Trixie, live in southern California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

110 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A heartwarming tribute to a joyous dog, July 20, 2009

By 

Sheila L. Beaumont (South Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog (Hardcover)

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I love Dean Koontz's fiction, and I found this heartwarming nonfiction tribute to his late golden retriever, Trixie, just as absorbing as any of his novels. It portrays Trixie's life with the Koontzes, and her death, but mostly her life and the amazing impact she had on the lives of Dean and his wife, Gerda.

This innocent, joyful, intelligent, uncannily mysterious, dignified, fun-loving dog, retired before the age of three as a service dog with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), became part of the Koontz family in 1998. I was surprised to find out that many of Koontz's dog novels, including "Watchers," had been written before he ever had a dog; obviously he already had an affinity for canines. He and Gerda had been supporters of CCI for eight years before adopting Trixie.

I loved Koontz's account of how Trixie's intelligence and sense of wonder revealed that she had a soul, and restored his and Gerda's own sense of wonder. Trixie made it evident that dogs are not mindless mechanisms operating solely on instinct, as some animal behaviorists would have us believe, but rather that they do think, possess intuition, experience emotions similar to ours, have a sense of humor, and even a spiritual dimension.

Of course, there is real sadness in the account of Trixie's last days, and her death, and it brought me to tears. But there's also gratitude for the joy she brought to the Koontzes' lives, and hope that her spirit survives. On the whole, this inspiring memoir is joyous, delightful and lively, and much of it is very funny. I highly recommend this book to all dog lovers and to readers who enjoy Koontz's dog stories.

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Some dog, huh?", July 18, 2011

By 

kacunnin (Bowie, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Big Little Life (Paperback)

Dean Koontz's A BIG LITTLE LIFE, is a beautiful and inspiring tribute to his golden retriever, Trixie. Those of us who have read Koontz's novels know that dogs - and especially goldens - have always appeared prominently in his works; and Trixie's picture has graced many a book jacket, sitting happily with her human owner. So it was no surprise how much this dog meant to both Koontz and his wife, Gerda. Trixie was a dog who not only changed their lives, but showed them a glimpse of the truly spiritual. As Koontz so beautifully writes, "She lived to love and to receive love, which is the condition of angels."

A BIG LITTLE LIFE is a very spiritual memoir, and Koontz is clear that he saw Trixie as an angel (in the overarching, grandly sacred sense). One of Koontz's acquaintances referred to Trixie as a "holy soul," and that is just the way Koontz portrays her. In the memoir he describes incident after incident that reveals Trixie as an amazingly special being, with the ability to connect with the humans in her world, to differentiate between good and evil, and to see beyond the mundane. Whether or not you believe the stories Koontz tells, it's impossible to read this book and not feel the impact of this dog on the lives of her human owners.

I've read most of Koontz's novels - I have always found them to be both frightening and uplifting in their affirmation of the human spirit. Even his most disturbing novels (like INTENSITY) contain within them an element of hope that leaves the reader profoundly touched. My favorite Koontz novel has always been WATCHERS, in which a wonderful golden retriever named Einstein leads her human companions out of the darkness. That this novel was written over ten years before Koontz acquired his own wonderful golden is amazing!

Read A BIG LITTLE LIFE - it will move you in unexpected ways. Even if you're not a dog lover, you can't help but be inspired by this animal's impact on the humans in her life. Koontz writes, "We are a community of potential saints with a shared destiny, and each of us is a thread in a tapestry of meaning." Trixie is the one who helped Koontz see this and live this - and in that alone she was an angel. This is a lovely tribute to a very special dog.

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The transformative story of how a dog irrevocably changed Dean Koontz's life, July 22, 2009

By 

George Beahm (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog (Hardcover)

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As any writer will tell you, the most difficult thing to write about convincingly, without being excessively sentimental, is the transformative nature of love in all its dimensions. In the hands of an inept writer, the subject inspires unintended hilarity, ripe for parody. But in the hands of a writer who has spent a lifetime honing his craft and explicating it in novels, as Dean Koontz has done, the prose will sing and soar in an exultation of joy.

Joy is Trixie.

Trixie, adopted by Dean and Gerda Koontz, is at the heart of this book: We learn how Trixie came into and became an inextricable part of their lives; and then, by her untimely departure, made them realize that relationship, that "dance" (as Jan Strnad put it), was such an enriching and uplifting life experience. To Dean and Gerda, Trixie Koontz was an angelic entity who, by example, deepened and enriched their lives; she constantly reminded them about all the things in life that truly matter: experiences and trust and the deepening bond of friendship that blossoms into love and, finally, heartbreak when Trixie died. (Yes, they adopted another Golden Retriever, who actually is in Trixie's family tree. Small world.)

Dean is an exquisitely careful writer who, to my mind, has probed deep into the timeless relationship that we have with our canine companions that live for one purpose: to experience, and share, joy. It's a joy that Dean and Gerda nearly missed out on because, as they explained, they were busy with their lives and careers and didn't want to be irresponsible and not give the dog the attention she deserved. Finally, they realized that -- as in all things in life -- the perfect time to take action is NOW: not next month, not next year, or not ten years down the road when you "have the time." That day will never come. Thus: Carpe diem (seize the day). So they did, and their lives were transformed in ways they never imagined when they accepted Trixie into their lives and then into their hearts.

I've read MARLEY AND ME, and I've also read the book about Dewey, the library cat, but this book takes us to the next, higher level. Dean has given a lot of thought to the relationship he enjoyed with Trixie, and explained it so well that even someone who has never enjoyed the company of a dog will understand why our canine companions are singular--as is this book.

**

This may help explain why Dean's book resonated so deeply with me: After five years of caregiving for my mother-in-law in our home on a 24/7 basis, my wife felt bereft, with no one to look after and care for and fuss over. So we "adopted" a neighborhood cat that used to live two doors down. The cat slept on her bed at night and sat next to her all day on the couch, and became an integral part of her life. But when the cat went back home to our neighbors who counted him as an integral part of THEIR family, my wife soon realized that she missed the cat's constancy, the relationship of bonding with the cat that curled up on the bed and purred contently when scratched; so we adopted one, then a second, and will soon adopt a third cat. She had never had a cat or a dog in her house before, but now that they are a part of our lives, an important and irreplaceable part, our lives are immeasurably richer for it. (Like Dean and Gerda, my wife and I are, by choice, childless.)

Dean Koontz, in A BIG LITTLE LIFE, captures those little moments and the experiences of sharing and living life with a canine companion in a way that constantly reminds us of the irreplaceable role they play in our world. When you finish this book, you will understand how and why Trixie changed their lives, and you will come away with a deep appreciation for the role our canine (and, yes, feline, feathered, and finned) companions contribute to the human experience.

Another writer, Jan Strnad, wrote a touching essay--one of the best I've ever read--titled "The Toby Years" that explicated the relationship their late dog had with him and his wife. He begins his essay with this line that says it all: "Surely one of the most sublime dances of our species is the one we dance with our pets."

Dean and Gerda Koontz, I think, know that dance very well indeed. And now, so do I.