HOW TO BURY YOUR DOG

An introverted animal lover gets drawn into an anti-development fight in this literary novel.

Lizzy isn’t the biggest fan of people, but she loves animals. An inveterate adopter of strays, she’s amassed a small herd of cats and dogs at her farmhouse. She’s just had to put down her favorite companion, her beloved basset hound, Happy. The death has consumed a lot of her emotional energy, leaving little left over to dedicate to the impending development of nearby Bartons Mill Pond. Russ Henderson, a friend from her activism-centered past, calls her, asking for help blocking the new homes planned for the pond, which abuts Lizzy’s property. “Lizzy, I know you hate the idea of a major subdivision out there,” he says. “Yes,” she responds, “but you also know I’ve given up fighting the world. It doesn’t budge.” Even so, Lizzy finds herself pulled into the cause as well as into the lives of two area boys: Jonas Meyers, a 16-year-old loner who loves to walk through the countryside, and Timmy Donohue, a 10-year-old paperboy struggling with questions of morality. These humans are slightly more complex than the critters Lizzy is used to dealing with, but is there a chance that their presence in her life can draw her closer to the world she’s written off? Silverfine’s prose is earthy and elegant, adept at animating both her characters and the natural world that captivates them. Here, Timmy comes across Jonas on the roadside and asks him what he’s looking at: “Without breaking his skyward gaze, Jonas replied, ‘The moon. And Venus.’ ‘I like when the moon is just a sliver, when you can barely see it but you know the whole moon is there. You can sort of see the dark part of the moon tonight. Venus is really bright.’ ” The story is well paced and the characters are deftly rendered, but it’s the sense of space that the author manages to embody—indoors and outdoors, country and town, and all the areas in between—that imbues the book with its alluring readability. The plot unfolds slowly and without much fanfare, yet readers will immediately be along for the ride—well, less a ride than a solitary stroll down a quiet country lane.

An absorbing, restorative tale of community and nature.