Thank you "Sam" for this wonderful Amazon Review. This brought tears to my eyes. Of course, five star reviews have a way of doing that and I'm incredibly appreciative of all my reviewers - but this one really captured my heart.
I am a big fan of James Herriot, so when I read the review that suggested her book was similar I thought I would give it a try. Yes, I would say that she is a modern day James
Herriot. Love this book! Excellent stories and writing style...hope to see more works from her soon! I am going to buy this book as gifts for friends.
What some of you may not know, is that James Herriot (his real name was James Alfred Wight), was someone who, while I was growing up, provided a safe shelter in a sometimes stormy life. I discovered these books when my Mother gave me her copy of All Creatures Great and Small in the early 70's. What we didn't realize at the time was that she would soon face an illness that would change all of our lives. While she was hospitalized during the many times in the years to follow, we would share all of James Herriot's books.
These books were based on the life of Alfred James Wight, a Vet who practiced in the town of
Thirsk, Yorkshire in Northern England. Although he wanted to write a book for many years, working long hours as a country veterinarian, fighting in World War II, and raising a family gave him little time to do it. He took the pen name of James Herriot and wrote If Only They Could Talk which was published in the U.K. in 1970. St. Martin's Press eventually published his first two books in one volume in the U.S. The result was All Creatures Great and Small. It was an overnight success. James Wight was 50 years old. More information on his books and life can be found on his official website. His Vet practice is now a museum. James Herriot died in 1995 at the age of 78. The photo of the book on this blog is what my copy looked like in the 1970's, although it's gone through several changes since then. His books were even made into a BBC TV series that was very popular for some time.
As an only child, my mother's death in 2003 was incredibly difficult for me. Not content with just the stories I had published in anthologies, she had been encouraging me to write my own book for years. Taking care of two young children, working full-time, commuting, completing my graduate degree and trying to care for her as she became increasingly incapacitated was an exhausting blur of activity - with little time to even think of writing.
After her funeral, when everyone had left to move on with their lives, I sat alone on the living room floor, writing the thank you cards for the flowers and donations to the National Kidney Foundation. The room had become increasingly dark as the sun set, but I hadn't even noticed. All of the cards were spread out on the floor and I was trying to collect them all to put stamps on them. Realizing that I might have lost some of the cards under
the couch, I lied down on the floor and reached under to try and fish out some of the lost cards when I felt something thicker...like a paperback book. I pulled it out and saw it was a dusty mass market paperback copy of James Herriot's last book Dog Stories. I'd never read it...and what's more...I didn't remember buying it. It was in poor condition. Maybe I'd picked it up at a tag sale? I hadn't had time to read for enjoyment for a few years - maybe I'd bought it and put it aside? I couldn't remember.
I pushed the thank you cards aside and turned the light on. I climbed up on the sofa and opened it - thinking I would look at it a bit and get back to the cards. I didn't. I read instead.
Where did the book come from? Why did I find it in that exact place, in that exact moment when I probably needed it the most? Once again, almost 30 years later, James Herriot gave me a place to go when everything around me seemed impossible to deal with. Perhaps more importantly, it
gave me an idea. Maybe even a message.
It was time to start collecting all of those stories I'd written through the years, some published, others not completely written, and put them together into a plan.
There are some similarities and differences- I also ended up working with animals and I enjoyed writing, although he had 56 years of experiences to write about, and I only had 4. He was born in Glasgow, where my Grandparents were born and much of my family still live. He started writing when he was 50. I was 44 when Lyons Press bought Tales from a Dog Catcher. He really enjoyed the people and and animals he worked with -as did I.
He wrote 14 books. I've written 1. After the next 15 or so stories I have to move on to either fiction or if I continue with narrative non-fiction; my experiences as a teacher. There are only so many true stories you can harvest from 4 years.
So, thank you Sam, for calling me a "modern day James Herriot". I'm so very glad that you enjoyed Tales from a Dog Catcher.
To be compared to someone who has meant so much to me, is an amazing honor. I am humbled by it.
photo courtesy of jamesherriot.org
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