The novel follows the story of Denny Swift, a race car driver and customer representative in a Seattle BMW dealership, and his dog Enzo, who believes in the Mongolian legend that a dog who is prepared will be reincarnated in his next life as a human. Enzo sets out to prepare, with The Seattle Times calling his journey "a struggle to hone his humanness, to make sense of the good, the bad and the unthinkable."
Enzo spends most of his days watching and learning from television, gleaning what he can about his owner's greatest passion, race car driving — and relating it to life. Enzo eventually plays a key role in Denny's child-custody battle with his in-laws, and distills his observations of the human condition in the mantra "that which you manifest is before you." Enzo helps Denny throughout his life, through his ups and downs.
The race car driving experience of the novel's character, Denny, is based on the author of the book, Garth Stein, his own experience in racing cars, and on another race car driver who is a close friend of Stein's who was dealing with some family turbulence at the time.
Stein moved from New York City to Seattle in 2001 and became involved in "high performance driver education," received his racing license with the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and won the points championship in the Northwest region Spec Miata class in 2003. Stein left racing after crashing while racing in the rain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Racing_in_the_Rain
If any readers have not read this book, go find a copy! It is a great read, right up there on my list of favorite books.
ReplyDeleteThe trailer was posted yesterday. It looks like a good movie. How can you lose with dogs and race cars?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp2ufFO4QGg
wow! Thanks! Much appreciated!
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