LIVING A DOG’S LIFE

Single lady of a certain age who knows just about everyone celebrates her life with small dogs.

Gossip columnist Adams follows up The Gift of Jazzy (2003), a bestselling memoir about her beloved, pint-sized canine companion, with this grief-laced sequel. Turns out the titular hero of Adams’s first book expired, and much of the present text features her protracted keening about Jazzy’s demise. Soon, however, he’s replaced by Juicy, who is in due time joined by Jazzy Junior. These two dogs become Adams’s babies; indeed, as is the wont of countless canine-obsessed humans, she frequently muddles the distinctions between them and human offspring. The dogs are, in her opinion, far superior to any other sort of companion, particularly the male sort. She takes them everywhere, from Gucci to church to a castle in France. They have play dates and parties with other four-legged objects of affection. They are free to pee on anything and anyone to whom they take a fancy, and they have quite a selection from which to choose: Adams’s Yorkies have met countless notable New Yorkers: Barbara Walters, Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Henry Kissinger. Friends of Adams, Joan Rivers and Judge Judy among them, think she needs a man, but what guy could ever hope to compete with these twin bundles of furry joy? In the pooches’ thrall, our venerable author, a sort of distaff Joe Franklin, remains clever and witty. A sizeable audience of the like-minded will enjoy all the carrying on, though it may prove tediously excessive to those who don’t know a Yorkshire terrier from a Yorkshire pudding.

A treat for those who heart dogs, an allergy attack for those who don’t.