THE MEANING OF HOME

An imaginative dog’s-eye view of the human-canine connection, as narrated by a small Pomeranian mix who spent several years in search of his forever home.

Meet little Charlie, part of an unplanned litter delivered by his champion Pomeranian mother and an unknown father. The offspring of such a union, Charlie explains, “are unwanted, bestowed at the moment of birth with the heavy baggage of being labeled a mixed breed, a mistake.” Fegley’s touching fictional debut is a tale about love, pain, and second chances—for Charlie and for the series of humans who come into his life. When he is 3 months old, he is adopted by Mira, a young woman whom he adores at first scent, although he is presciently apprehensive about her partner, Mark. Because Mira works out of her home, she and the little pup she calls Pequeñospend their days in happy companionship. The relationship infuriates Mark, a violent man who, in the narrative’s most hair-raising episode, directs his anger and cruelty against Charlie, leaving him to die in a parking lot. Help arrives with not a moment to spare, and Charlie escapes into the woods, where he must fend for himself. Hungry and frightened, he happens upon an old woman who thinks he is her long-lost dog—Charlie—and the novel’s irrepressible hero follows her into a homeless camp, where he is taken in and loved for the next few years, until he must find a new home once again. Fegley has created a charmingly lovable character who combines human-level wisdom with canine instincts and amusing antics. His experiences are sometimes full of joy and at other times, heartbreaking. The humans with whom Charlie bonds provide a source of poignant secondary stories, and as their own fears, traumatic memories, and current tragedies are revealed, dog and humans help each other move forward. “Dogs don’t have many answers,” Charlie tells us plaintively. “We just listen. Sometimes that’s all a human needs.”

Endearing; best for dog lovers, who will have little difficulty suspending their disbelief.