(apologies to the great Mike Birbiglia for borrowing his title)
So … I have a deal to write a new book.
We actually signed the paperwork a few weeks ago, but I wanted to wait until after the holidays before I said anything in public. Now it’s time to make the announcement. Would you like to guess? I promise you, we could sit here all day and you’d never guess.
My next book is going to be about…
The Westminster Dog Show.
Yep: My first book was a pour-your-guts-out memoir about my lifelong struggle to lose weight. This book involves a lot of hanging out with dogs. It’s a bit of a departure.
Here’s how it happened: I had pitched a couple of ideas to my fantastic editor, Jofie Ferrari-Adler, who now co-runs his own imprint called Avid Reader Press as part of Simon & Schuster. Jofie was lukewarm on the ideas I pitched him, which is fine and a normal part of the publishing business. I was trying to figure out what to pitch next, and he suggested that I just send him a big batch of ideas, so he could help me get a sense of which one might make the best book.
So I sent him 20 ideas.
Some of them were two or three paragraphs. Others were a few sentences. But idea number 19 was just this:
Westminster. I don’t have a brilliant idea here except to say that nobody
has ever done a great book on the Westminster Dog Show and it’s about
fucking time.
Jofie and his colleagues liked several of the ideas, and my agent, Sloan Harris, chimed in with his favorites. As we kept talking, and the Westminster idea floated to the top, I fleshed it out a little more:
The dog show is a fascinating little world — the owners and trainers and judges trying to determine the perfect version of all these different breeds, and the amazing and wonderful dogs parading around the floor of Madison Square Garden, oblivious to pretty much everything except the treat in the trainer’s hand.
What I really like about it is the contrast to the way we think about dogs in the regular world. Show dogs are judged for how closely they fit the ideal version of the breed. Regular dogs, we love for their quirks — the weird way they eat, or how their ears are different sizes, or how they always turn three circles before settling down to bed. But there’s overlap, too: Even the best show dogs have their own little weirdnesses, and somehow even the mangiest mutt can give off a flash of royalty.
People and dogs have been partners for tens of thousands of years. What do we get out of that relationship? What do they get out of it? It made me want to go find out — not just to Westminster and other dog shows, but to meet scientists and poets and other people who have thought hard about that deep connection between our dogs and us.
So the book will be about the dog show … but, I hope, also a lot more than that.
In some ways, this is a return to what I’m used to. My memoir was a bit out of step for me — I’m more used to writing about other people. There’s nothing about my work that I love more than diving into a new world, learning about it, and coming back to tell the tale.
I’m headed to New York in a few weeks for Westminster 2020, to dive into that world, and I can’t wait.
I’ll post a few updates along the way, but probably not many — I like to keep things fairly close to the vest while I’m working. But I suspect I’ll post some dog photos here and on my Instagram feed from time to time. And if everything goes well, in a couple of years, we’ll have a book.
The kicker: My wife and I just acquired a cat. But that’s a story for another time.
*****
While I have your attention … the paperback of “The Elephant in the Room” comes out NEXT WEEK — Jan. 14, although feel free to go ahead and preorder. I’ll be doing a short book tour over the next couple of weeks — if you’re in Charlotte, Athens, Atlanta, Nashville, Auburn, or Litchfield Beach, S.C., come say hey. I’ve already got a few more dates lined up for spring and even into the fall.
This book-writing life is such a gift for me — I always wanted to do it, but never knew if I’d get a shot. To be able to write a second book … well, I’m doubly blessed. Thanks to all of you for buying books, not just mine, but anyone’s. See you on the road.
— TT