If dog is man’s best friend, get ready for a wild pack of new best friends in Gordon Frisbie’s Echoes in the Stars. There is no doubt that boisterous Boo is the pilot in this high-altitude tale, but everyone she meets, both human and canine, helps paint the lively picture of her sunny days. Many readers will identify with the qualities Boo brings to her human—bravery, companionship, an unending sense of curiosity, and a sense of purpose—in the connection they share with their own fur babies.
A man celebrates his love for his dogs in this doting memoir.
Frisbie looks back on his relationships with several pooches, focusing on Boo, an Australian shepherd, white with black patches, whom he picked out at a shelter because she had “sinuous muscles” and a sleek physique that seemed “like a vessel designed to contain a strong spirit.” Frisbie and Boo trained and competed together in dog agility meets, in which canines run obstacle courses under their handlers’ command, near their Denver home. But mostly they just provided each other with companionship, especially on long walks around the neighborhood and in nearby state parks. The book unfolds as a series of essays about the doggy things Boo did, including chasing squirrels, floundering into ponds, hogging the bed, fidgeting incessantly while riding shotgun in Frisbie’s pickup, getting stung on the snout by yellow jackets, and carrying on a ceaseless crusade against any coyote whose scent crossed her nose. (“A coyote-tinged miasma drifted from a heavily vegetated swale….Within seconds, a riot of shrieks and screams erupted from the swamp,” the author writes of one encounter.) Other adventures erupted on fishing trips to Montana and Idaho, including Boo’s brave, suicidal, bristling stand-off with a grizzly and her two cubs. Nosing in occasionally are Frisbie’s mother’s canines Koko, Sachi, and Yoshi, all of them shiba inus, who looked like small, reddish huskies and contributed their own feisty antics. Frisbie gives an unusually fine-grained, intense portrait of the deep emotional bond that can develop between a human and a dog. (“Boo was my child,” he writes, describing his panic when she was almost swept away in a river.) His prose is colorful and droll and captures the delightful strangeness of the dog universe in evocative detail. (“To execute a perfect stinky roll,” he observes of the canine habit of wallowing in manure or carrion, “the dog must remain in an inverted position over the target area while aggressively kicking their legs with spasms of joy. This technique, if performed properly, grinds the foul odor deep into the fur on their backs. It’s a difficult maneuver and can require multiple attempts until the dog is satisfied with the results.”) Dog lovers will embrace this resonant account.
A deep dive into human-canine friendship, by turns funny and heartfelt.
Captivating & Compelling
Top-notch writing weaves a solid story of the author’s adventures and misadventures with Boo and his other dogs, known collectively as “the girls.” The writing style is as captivating as it is compelling, giving readers a “You Are There” flavor that’s both immediate and immersive.
Additionally, the author’s expertise in matters geographical, marine, meteorological, botanical, woodsy, and doggies is extensive – and often hilarious. The “taco bed.” Welcome to “nature’s revenge.” Why fishing near willows and camping beneath spruce trees are both bad ideas. “Human obedience.” “Cow vision.” Life in a townhome “cluster” and “fifteen-point turning skills.” Fishing during a summer blizzard: “It was the dumbest thing Boo had ever seen.”
