SHAGGY MUSES

SHAGGY MUSES: Maureen Adams: Ballantine Books: 2007: Nonfiction: 320 pages

Through letters, journal entries and contemporary writings, author Maureen Adams offers a unique perspective into the lives of Emily Bronte, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson and Virginia Woolf. These women, plagued by loneliness, depression, poor health and bouts of creative frenzies, often had only one fragile link that kept them grounded in the real world, their DOG. Each self contained chapter explores the life of one of these women giving us insight into how their dogs affected their daily lives, influencing them creatively, mentally, and socially. Whether running through the moors or living vicariously through their dogs, these “women/dog” bonds were life sustaining. This book fascinated me. I learned about the struggles these women endured, about routine daily life and what was culturally & politically “correct” behavior during this era. (Dog napping was a profitable business, lap dogs were the only acceptable house dogs, women did NOT write novels.) Although this is not a riveting page turner, it is a worthwhile read for teens and above especially if you are a literature lover, dog lover (or liker) or if you want to understand how animals can influence a human life. The reader on the Books On Tape version, Polly Stone, is quite listenable.

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