"This is Hannah," Lynne Hugo introduces her chocolate Labrador retriever to an aged woman in a wheelchair at the Golden View Nursing Home. "Would you like to pat her?"
"I don't know," the woman responds warily. "Dogs are complicated."
So, of course, is life, especially as the years accumulate and the body declines. In fact, it is precisely the most painful complications that Hugo hopes to ease with Hannah, her exuberant therapy dog.
Where the Trail Grows Faint is the story of Hugo's experiences with Hannah and the elderly patients they visit. In return for their visits, Hugo unexpectedly receives an outpouring of stories as the residents respond to Hannah's antics and affection. As Hugo's involvement deepens, she begins to see her own life and her care for her elderly parents in a new perspective. Interweaving the elders' tales-of old loves and ancient dreams, abandonment and loneliness, and the struggle for dignity-with her own family's story, she creates a richly textured collective portrait of the often-hidden world of the aged. At the same time, she crafts an eloquent meditation on the fundamental human need to nurture and remain connected to other people, to animals, and to the natural world.
Lynne Hugo is the author of two poetry collections, a children's book, and four novels, including The Unspoken Years, Graceland, and Last Rights.
ISBN-13: 9780803224513
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: UNP - Bison Books
Publication Date: 07-01-2009
Pages: 160
Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)
Series: River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize
Lynne Hugo is the author of two poetry collections, The Time Change and A Progress of Miracles, and is the coauthor with Anna Tuttle Villegas of two novels, Swimming Lessons and Baby's Breath.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
1. First, Everybody Leaves You
2. A Velvet Anger
3. One Dear Voice
4. Regret
5. We All Fall Down
6. Power
7. Whatever It Takes
8. Working (in) the System
9. Huntin' Home
10. The Eden Effect
11. Interim Report
12. At Their Mercy
13. Life Goes On
14. The Root of Evil
15. Hannah at Home
16. Hope
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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