A DOG IN GEORGIA

Seeking purpose and some distance from her “impossible rogue” of a husband who may have been unfaithful again, Amy Webb leaves New York for Georgia—the country, not the state—in search of a lost dog.

Angel isn’t just any dog, but a heroic mutt that sees schoolchildren safely across the road in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Amy, a 46-year-old pet lover, has been making donations to a rescue group seeking to solve Angel’s mysterious disappearance, and after the latest flare-up with her husband, Judd, she responds impulsively to an online chat with a woman at the rescue group and heads to Eastern Europe, hoping to trace the hound herself. Once arrived, though, the MacGuffin of locating Angel takes second place to reflections on a whole range of issues challenging Amy’s perimenopausal sense of self, alongside an update on Georgian politics. The year is 2023 and Georgia bears some comparison with Ukraine, suffering Putin’s constant pressures. There are demonstrations in the streets. More personally, Amy is grappling with her dormant sexuality, prompted by the presence in the chaotic household where she’s lodging of piercingly blue-eyed Russian deserter Andrei. Events and conversations also raise the topic of male infidelity, both generally and specifically, and then there’s the question of parenting. Amy’s own father disappeared when she was 2. How did this influence her choice of Judd? What about her stepparenting of Judd’s son, Ferry, whose mother is dying after years of addictions? Simultaneously comic, earnest, and travelogue-ishly descriptive of Georgian food, folk, and history, the novel largely succeeds in treading the tightrope of delivering entertainment while winding its issues into the storytelling. Some sideswipes at American naivety add to the amusement, and as Amy comes to understand her own truth, so one canine mystery gives way to another.

A comforting tale of female self-empowerment littered with doggy distractions.