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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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TRAVELS WITH CASEY

Benoit Denizet-Lewis

My Journey Through Our Dog-Crazy Country

A moody Labrador and his insecure human take a funny, touching cross-country RV trip into the heart of America’s relationship with dogs.
“I don’t think my dog likes me very much,” New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis confesses at the beginning of his journey with his nine-year-old Labrador-mix, Casey. Over the next four months, thirty-two states, and 13,000 miles in a rented motor home, Denizet-Lewis and his canine companion attempt to pay tribute to the most powerful interspecies bond there is, in the country with the highest rate of dog ownership in the world.

On the way, Denizet-Lewis—known for his deeply reported dispatches from far corners of American life—meets an irresistible cast of dogs and dog-obsessed humans. Denizet-Lewis and Casey hang out with wolf-dogs in Appalachia, search with a dedicated rescuer of stray dogs in Missouri, spend a full day at a kooky dog park in Manhattan, get pulled over by a K9 cop in Missouri, and visit “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan in California. And then there are the pet psychics, dog-wielding hitchhikers, and two nosy women who took their neighbor to court for allegedly failing to pick up her dog’s poop.

Travels With Casey is a delightfully idiosyncratic blend of memoir and travelogue coupled with an exploration of a dog-loving America. What does our relationship to our dogs tell us about ourselves and our values? Denizet-Lewis explores those questions—and his own canine-related curiosities and insecurities—during his unforgettable road trip through our dog-loving nation.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a writer with The New York Times Magazine and an assistant professor of writing and publishing at Emerson College. He is the author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, and has contributed to Sports Illustrated, The New Republic, Details, Slate, Salon, Out, and many others. Denizet-Lewis lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
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Book

Published 2014-07-22 by Simon & Schuster

Book

Published 2014-07-22 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

This sprightly, entertaining travelogue should find a delighted readership.

I couldn’t stop reading Travels with Casey until I had to walk the dog. It’s an adventure story, a love story, and a brilliant commentary on dog literature from J.R. Ackerley to Cesar Millan. Everyone who has a dog will love this book.

Where Travels With Casey feels different is in the breadth of its explorations into people’s experiences with dogs. It’s all about love at the core, but from therapy dogs to people determined to make their dogs into YouTube stars, the book showcases the wide range of interactions between humans and their favorite animal. Denizet-Lewis has a generous, humanistic eye for subjects and characters, profiling across classes, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Read more...

Travels with Casey is a charming, touching, human and humane book. The author’s self-deprecating humor, his keen eye for the truth of the people he encounters, his respect for those who live in what too many others might call ‘fly-over country,’ and his affection for dogs make this a unique book.

Travels With Casey is a fascinating, clear-eyed, must-read dog book. Benoit takes us on a journey into that very sentimental, very American dog-human relationship, and the result is a dog book like no other.

Early in Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s “Travels With Casey,” the Emerson College writing professor visits a psychoanalyst to discuss his issues with Casey, a nine-year-old Labrador-golden retriever mix. “I don’t think my dog likes me very much,” Denizet-Lewis tells the doctor. “I wish Casey was more of a cuddler.” Read more...

New York Times Magazine, first serial excerpt, July 20, 2014 Read more...

Dog lovers will be entranced by Benoit Denizet-Lewis’ Travels with Casey, but so will everyone, because it’s a book about all of us and a book about America. His observations are funny and poignant and the writing is exquisite.

Denizet-Lewis is a master at effortlessly weaving bits of research into his narrative… An intentionally intellectual, geographically expansive analysis of dog culture. Read more...

Benoit Denizet-Lewis has written about some pretty strange and fascinating people in his career, but no group is more entertaining than Dog People. Benoit captures this group with warmth and wit in Travels With Casey. Sit! Read! Enjoy!

Casey takes his place alongside Charley and Tulip and Skip as Denizet-Lewis takes his alongside John Steinbeck and J.R. Ackerley and Willie Morris. Travels with Casey is a book for dog lovers that reaffirms why we love them so. And it is a book for misanthropes that will restore their faith in humanity.

Engaging... Comparisons to John Steinbeck's TRAVELS WITH CHARLY are obious, but this is an entirely different and equally rewarding piece of work that expands with each page without losing ists narrative thread or the reader's interest.