Lily and the Octopus
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3.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
‘Intelligently written, finely observed and surprisingly moving, this is a book you’ll find hard to put down’ Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project
Companions come in all shapes and sizes.
Companionship lasts forever.
Lily and the Octopus is a novel about finding that special someone to share your life with.
For Ted Flask, that someone is Lily, and she happens to be a dog.
This novel reminds us how to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.
Reminiscent of The Life of Pi and The Art of Racing in the Rain, with spins into magic realism and beautifully evoked universal truths of love, loyalty and loss, a hilariously sardonic and not altogether reliable narrator, and one unforgettable hound who simple wisdom will break your heart and put it back together again, Lily and the Octopus captures the search for meaning in death and introduces a dazzling new voice in fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Screenwriter Rowley's sensitive, hilarious, and emotionally rewarding debut novel explores the effect that pets can have on human lives. Teddy is unhappily single in L.A. In between sessions with his therapist and dates with men he meets online, it is his beloved 12-year-old dachshund, Lily, who occupies his heart. Curiously, Teddy is able to communicate with Lily, with whom he debates the attractiveness of male celebrities and plays board games. Distressingly, he is also able to communicate with the "octopus" attached to the little dog's head, which is soon revealed to be a metaphor for Lily's lethal cranial tumor. Complicating matters is the increasing prevalence of Lily's seizures and the looming inevitability of her demise. The intimacy of pet ownership is sweetly suffused throughout this heartwarming autobiographical fiction, originally written as self-therapy for the author's own grief. In generous helpings of bittersweet humanity, Rowley has written an immensely poignant and touchingly relatable tale that readers (particularly animal lovers) will love.
