From Flaubert with Love

From Flaubert with Love is actually four books in one. The first part, beginning with the story of a faithful and loving golden retriever (Flaubert) is a series of seven stories and ending with a novella (If the Shoe Fits, Steal It), each about the adventures of dogs and their human companions. The second and longest section (11 stories) is devoted to humor and satire from the hilarious "A Little Lust for the Elderly" in which a sometimes coquettish and most of the time kinky octogenarian KO's a mobster, to an examination of the law in Utah where a woman could actually be given the death sentence for having an abortion ("Mrs. Fielding Faces the Firing Squad"), to a somewhat contemporary political story in "The Naked Congressman and the Minister's Wife." The third and fourth section concern tales of the Twilight Zone and stories that ask the reader to ponder curious issues in The Elusive Truth. You will read of a woman's efforts to make up for the lack of human readership by making a scholar out of her dog, of another dog who achieves a magical healing through the good earth, of how Shakespeare words in effect rose from the grave to protect a landowner from the schemes of crooked politicians and a contractor with no sense of decency, of a male chauvinist thinking of accusing old ladies of peeing in his YMCA pool, of a woman who wakes up to find a naked lady bound and gagged under her bed, and of an epidemic of shoe thefts in a college library investigated by a bumbling security head. There are also two children's stories, one about a disappearing dog and another about a puppy who changed his mind about geraniums. From Flaubert with Love begins and ends with the presence of dogs. It is a book for many tastes, but especially for those who love dogs and enjoy laughter.