The Mountaintop School for Dogs And Other Second Chances
Ellen Cooney, 2014
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544236158
Summary
When twenty-four year old Evie impulsively ventures to the mountaintop Sanctuary to learn to become a dog trainer, she’s proceeding under falsehoods, having lied on her application.
She claimed to have experience with animals without explaining it was all from books, and she never mentioned the rehab program she’s just now coming out of. But she hadn’t known that the Sanctuary is a secret command center for a rescue network that engages in kidnappings of abused dogs, or that she’d be the only training-trainee they have.
Evie’s unique, vivid voice is a force of nature, and she meets her matches in the indomitable Mrs. Auberchon and other members of the staff, including a mysterious teenager named Giant George and an elderly golden retriever, Boomer, the Sanctuary’s butler.
At the heart of the novel are the wounded, healing dogs whose pasts, as Evie puts it, need to be erased like viruses on a computer: Tasha the Rottweiler, Alfie the greyhound, Shadow the hound mix, Dora the Scottie, Hank the lab/pit bull, Josie the yappy and deaf “small mix,” and Dapple the brood hound, whose rescue becomes Evie’s first kidnapping. These dogs meet all expectations as beautifully drawn, fully realized, unforgettable characters.
And as Evie begins her new education, which often involves learning things about cruelty and inhumanity she will wish she doesn’t know, the real adventure of Mountaintop opens up and keeps on opening, charged with her anger, convictions, intelligence, humor, mistakes, and most of all, her alive-ness.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1952
• Where—Clinton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—M.A., Clark University
• Currently—lives in the state of Maine
Ellen Cooney is the author of A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies (2005) and The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (2014), as well as several other novels. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker and many literary journals. She has taught writing at MIT, Harvard, and Boston College, and now lives in Maine with her dogs Andy, Skip, and Maxine—who are each, in their own way, rescues.
In her words:
The Mountaintop School For Dogs And Other Second Chances is my ninth novel. My life in fiction officially began with the publication of Small Town Girl, in 1983. Since then I’ve published with big, small, and university presses, plus an adventure in e-publishing with my eighth novel, Thanksgiving. My short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and many literary journals, but I haven’t done any stories lately. With my last several novels, each time I finish, I feel I want to write stories again, but then I start missing the thing of a long haul and find myself itchy to start a new one.
I was born in Clinton, Massachusetts in 1952 and lived for many years in Boston and Cambridge. I taught creative writing at Boston College, Northeastern University, the (former) Seminars at Radcliffe, Harvard University Extension and Summer School, and most recently at MIT, where I had a long, excellent gig as a writer in residence in the writing program. My life in books and writing has also included jobs as freshman comp teacher, copy writer, freelance journalist, film reviewer, bookstore clerk, and even, way back in the day, as an assembly-line packer for a book manufacturer in my home town.
As I like to say at my public appearances, and to anyone who asks about my career, “I’ve been around.” I was a child and adolescent poet and playwright. My first poem was published in a local paper when I was eight and then I just kept going. My schools put on my plays as a matter of routine. One year, in high school, when I’d been feeling a little lazy, I was insulted to discover a Thornton Wilder play might end up being chosen for a yearly drama thing, but it got me to hunker down and write a new one. I finally began writing fiction as a graduate student in English at Clark University in Worcester, MA, working on a thesis about Virginia Woolf, which I needed to take a break from. I was supposed to go on from my master’s to a Ph.D. in literature and a career as an academic who also wrote plays and poetry: my old fantasy.
But fiction took over. I don’t feel I “found it.” It was more that it just happened. I didn’t even know what I was doing when I started writing a semi-autobiographical piece about a girl obsessed with bomb shelters in the Cold War days of my youth, but it became that first novel. Sometimes I think I became a fiction writer after eliminating poet, playwright, and academic, as if the whole thing were logical. Mostly, I think I became a fiction writer because fiction is where you get to do everything, and that’s what I hope shows most in my work.
I write fulltime now and live in mid-coast Maine. I welcome inquiries and comments from book groups and readers of all sorts. One of my greatest pleasures is finding email from someone who just read one of my books and wanted to say they felt moved, or inspired, or connected, or less lonely or misunderstood, or even upset about a turn of a plot or something I described.
Now that Mountaintop is making its way in the world, I especially welcome comments from people who share my experience of living with animals who were rescued from lives of neglect, abuse, tragedy. My own three dogs inspired me to write about the profound and life-affirming things that happen when humans have the chance to truly connect with animals: comedy, really, because comedy is the opposite of the tragic.
My dogs drive me crazy at least once a day. But they make me laugh a whole lot more, and while I hope and trust they’ve forgotten their earlier experiences of being in terrible situations, I never stop remembering that at any given moment, somewhere, for every animal being loved by a human, another is being hurt by one. I like to think it’s not a mere fantasy that maybe a reader or two of Mountaintop will want to go to a shelter and bring home a homeless pet (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Cooney’s good-natured narrative teaches readers about many different aspects of dog behavior and training alongside Evie, making the book ideal for animal aficionados...Dog lovers rejoice! Cooney has crafted an uncomplicated, feel-good, canine-filled tale of cross-generational friendship, healing, and solidarity.
Publishers Weekly
Cooney’s latest novel is both a joyful romp and a thoughtful meditation. The author’s delicate touch with the pain and trauma endured by abused animals and her sensitive portrayal of dedicated rescuers send a powerful message. Love is a great teacher and we are all a little unadoptable. Readers of Garth Stein and Carolyn Parkhurst will adore this title.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A charming novel about damaged souls looking for a "forever home."
Shelf Awareness
As knowledgeable as she is about the world of dog rescue and rehabilitation, Cooney (Lambrusco, 2008) is equally empathic in her treatment of a scarred and scared young woman.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Who is your favorite Sanctuary dog? If you could adopt any one of them, which dog would you be least likely to choose? Would you trust your instincts about imagining a future for the dog with you? Would breed matter? Size? Personality?
2. When we first meet Evie, she’s emerging from the troubled years of her early twenties and wondering what to do with her life. Although finding the Sanctuary’s ad is accidental, did you feel her decision was only impulsive? She explains, “I felt that I stood in the doorway of a crowded, noisy room, picking up the sound of a whisper no one else seemed to hear” (page 3). Have you ever had to make a similar choice about following your instincts, or some sort of “calling,” even though it means entering a great unknown? How much does selfconfidence play into this? Courage?
3. Evie makes the case that it’s not a good idea to feel pity for an abused rescued dog. What is the novel saying about the difference between sympathy and empathy? What is it saying about methods of teaching and learning, not only in terms of dogs but for humans as well? What about the distinctions made between “training” and “teaching,” and the function of a teacher’s creativity? How does the early scene with Evie putting the trash can in the pen with Hank show what type of trainer she’ll become?
4. There are no graphic scenes in the novel of violence or cruelty. What is your reaction to the clinical typenotes on the past experiences of the Sanctuary dogs? What about the brief video in which the man involved in dogfighting mourns a dog who was killed in a fight, while saying, “I loved that dog”? Have you ever wished, as Evie does, that you didn’t know what you know about cruelties committed by humans?
5. How much of a role does the setting play in Mountaintop? The mountain itself? The location is never named—do you imagine the mountain in a specific place? How does Evie’s ascent of the mountain reflect elemental themes in literature and human experience? Did you feel a close presence of nature? Does the author use forces of nature to advance and enhance the story? What about the effects of nature on Evie?
6. What does alternating chapters between Evie and Mrs. Auberchon do for the novel? How does it affect the novel’s balance? What is the effect of having Evie in first person and Mrs. Auberchon in third? How effective is the final scene, especially when Mrs. Auberchon reveals her secret?
7. In her oneparagraph application essay touching on the story of the monk and Buddha, Evie scorns the monk’s refusal to speak or write of his visionexperience. Why does she react this way? Do you think she’s right? What is the novel saying about spirituality? What about the insistence on making an effort to communicate, to connect? What is your favorite act of connection between a human and a dog in the novel? Between a human and a human? Between a dog and a dog?
8. How do you feel about the Sanctuary’s involvement with the Network and the issue of kidnapping abused dogs? Did you feel that Evie’s participation in kidnapping the brood hound, Dapple, was of deep significance to her? How successful is Evie at imagining the old life of Shadow, the hound mix who had been living outdoors on a chain before he was kidnapped? What did it feel like when Shadow found his voice?
9. “Alpha” is a significant word in Mountaintop. The subject of domination and submission plays a crucial part in Evie’s learning process, along with teaching (and living) practices based on controlling behavior through use of intimidation, pain, and fear. Does the novel succeed in revealing how the dogs of the Sanctuary don’t only need to recover from harm done to their bodies, but to their spirits, their confidence, their dogness? Have you ever witnessed someone being harshly overcontrolling of their dog? How does the Sanctuary’s rejection of “alphaness” affect you? Can a dog and a human be true companions if a human insists on an alpha dynamic?
10. What is the novel saying about different types of obedience? Do you think Evie successfully manages to describe and understand how obedience is sometimes a positive thing, and sometimes not? Were you surprised that after Evie met Dora the Scottie, she came to feel that sometimes being an alpha is okay? What about the scene at the inn with Tasha, when Evie unwittingly behaves in a dominant manner that’s close to being abusive?
11. What are your reactions to Mrs. Auberchon? Do your early impressions of her change when you discover she’s the Sanctuary Warden, and what that means? What is your favorite scene with her?
12. Mountaintop has many funny moments, either through Evie’s narration or in comic scenes. What would this book be like without those moments of lightness? How necessary were they for your reading of the novel? Did it happen that you were moved to sadness and laughter in moments that came closely together? How did this affect your relationship with the characters?
13. What about Evie’s family? Is she doing the right thing in deciding she wants to be separate and out of touch, at least while she’s in her program? What do you imagine her parents are like? How much of Evie’s pre-Sanctuary life was determined by her parents’ divorce? What about the staffers, whom Evie so misunderstood? They aren’t present in many scenes, but do you feel they’re fully present in the world of the novel?
14. Were you bothered that Giant George/Eric is a character whose past is never known? Do you imagine a past he might have had? What is the novel saying about the relationship of anyone’s past to the future? Do you think Evie is naive or overly optimistic in coming to believe a past of abuse and loneliness can be erased like a virus on a computer? Evie wonders early on if it’s possible to “go to the place inside someone where loneliness is, when the someone was never anything but lonely” (page 90). Does she find an answer to that question?
15. If you imagine yourself going to the Sanctuary, say a few weeks after the end of the novel, what do you think is happening with the pit bulls? With the other dogs? With the humans?
(Questions from the author's website.)