Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy

Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy

by Marianne Leone

Released September 3, 2024

Marianne Leone writes about the joy that can be summoned after a great loss, "when you look into the eyes of another damaged creature and know that your happiness is a mirror and an echo and a prayer, and that the little soul reflecting all that energy is happy too, at last." This memoir is a moving and sometimes surprisingly funny exploration of grief and the mutual healing that can occur between rescue dogs and people who have experienced a soul-crushing loss. Leone and her husband, actor Chris Cooper, lost their only child suddenly in 2005. Jesse was seventeen, a straight-A student, and a brilliant poet, who was also quadriplegic and nonverbal except with the assistance of a computer.

This is the story of a bereaved couple and a pack of rescue dogs finding their way to a new life, everyone licking their wounds, both corporal and spiritual, and the rediscovery of joy.

Marianne Leone is an actress, screenwriter, and essayist. Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe, Post Road, Bark, Coastal Living, and WBUR's Cognoscenti blog. Her memoir, Jesse: A Mother's Story, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2010.