“In each little life we can see great truth and beauty, and in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe.”
DEAN KOONTZ thought he had everything he needed. A successful novelist with more than twenty #1 New York Times bestsellers to his credit, Dean had forged a career out of industry and imagination. He had been married to his high school sweetheart, Gerda, since the age of twenty, and together they had made a happy life for themselves in their Southern California home. It was the picture of peace and contentment. Then along came Trixie.
Dean had always wanted a dog–had even written several books in which dogs were featured. But not until Trixie was he truly open to the change that such a beautiful creature could bring about in him. Trixie had intelligence, a lack of vanity, and an uncanny knack for living in the present. And because she was joyful and direct as all dogs are, she put her heart into everything–from chasing tennis balls, to playing practical jokes, to protecting those she loved.
A retired service dog with Canine Companions for Independence, Trixie became an assistance dog of another kind. She taught Dean to trust his instincts, persuaded him to cut down to a fifty-hour work week, and, perhaps most important, renewed in him a sense of wonder that will remain with him for the rest of his life. She mended him in many ways.
Trixie weighed only sixty-something pounds, Dean occasionally called her Short Stuff, and she lived less than twelve years. In this big world, she was a little thing, but in all the ways that mattered, including the effect she had on those who loved her, she lived a big life.
Ted Kerasote Reviews A Big Little Life
Ted Kerasote is the author of many books, including the national bestseller Merle’s Door: Lessons From a Freethinking Dog; and Pukka: The Pup After Merle.
Anyone who has read Dean Koontz’s novels (my favorite is Watchers) knows that he can tell a gripping tale while being perceptive about dogs, an insight made more noteworthy by the fact that Koontz didn’t have a dog for the longest time. Finally in 1998 he and his wife Gerda corrected this omission by adopting Trixie, a Golden Retriever and trained assistance dog, who had been forced by elbow problems to retire in her third year of service. It was the happiest forced retirement imaginable–for Trixie, for the Koontzes, and for all of us who are now privileged to read Dean Koontz’s loving memoir of this remarkable being: A Big Little Life.
Like all great writers, Koontz has the ability to transform the ordinary–his daily life with Trixie–into the funny, the moving, and the sublime. Trixie’s accidentally gashing him while they play fetch turns into one of the great set pieces of medical comedy as Koontz ends up in the emergency room with a lacerated hand. On another occasion Trixie’s saying “baw” for “ball”—straining to say it, but saying it nonetheless–becomes a memorable recounting of all of our attempts to communicate with beings from another species. And Koontz’s simply watching Trixie move, her lithe golden body shimmering and flashing in the sun, takes on the quality of the divine as he expresses what so many of us have subconsciously thought about our own dogs: “The more I watched her, the more she seemed to be an embodiment of that greatest of all graces we now and then glimpse, from which we intuitively infer the hand of God.”
It is no exaggeration to say that Trixie was the hand of God for Koontz. He recounts his difficult childhood, his dysfunctional father, and the many challenges that he had to overcome on the road to becoming a world-famous novelist. But with that fame came commercial caution: telling stories in the same old familiar way and a consequent dulling of his creativity. Then came Trixie. With “baws” and balls, with warning him of fires and intruders in the house, with humor, with stoicism, and with unflinching love, she restored his diminished sense of wonder and impelled him toward taking new risks with narratives, themes, and characters, the very ones millions of us now enjoy.
“Some dog, huh?” he says.
“Some dog, yes,” we must agree, also concurring when he adds, “The only significant measure of your life is the positive effect you have on others.”
For all of us who have had our lives made better by our dogs, or for that matter by any loving being, A Big Little Life is a welcome reminder of the power of love to turn our hearts into mirrors, reflecting compassion back into the universe–as Trixie most surely did for Koontz and Koontz now does for us.
A heartwarming tribute to a joyous dog I love Dean Koontz’s fiction, and I found this heartwarming nonfiction tribute to his late golden retriever, Trixie, just as absorbing as any of his novels. It portrays Trixie’s life with the Koontzes, and her death, but mostly her life and the amazing impact she had on the lives of Dean and his wife, Gerda.This innocent, joyful, intelligent, uncannily mysterious, dignified, fun-loving dog, retired before the age of three as a service dog with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), became part of the Koontz family in 1998. I was surprised to find out that many of Koontz’s dog novels, including “Watchers,” had been written before he ever had a dog; obviously he already had an affinity for canines. He and Gerda had been supporters of CCI for eight years before adopting Trixie.I loved Koontz’s account of how Trixie’s intelligence and sense of wonder revealed that she had a soul, and restored his and Gerda’s own sense of wonder. Trixie made it evident that dogs are not mindless mechanisms operating solely on instinct, as some animal behaviorists would have us believe, but rather that they do think, possess intuition, experience emotions similar to ours, have a sense of humor, and even a spiritual dimension.Of course, there is real sadness in the account of Trixie’s last days, and her death, and it brought me to tears. But there’s also gratitude for the joy she brought to the Koontzes’ lives, and hope that her spirit survives. On the whole, this inspiring memoir is joyous, delightful and lively, and much of it is very funny. I highly recommend this book to all dog lovers and to readers who enjoy Koontz’s dog stories.
“Some dog, huh?” Dean Koontz’s A BIG LITTLE LIFE, is a beautiful and inspiring tribute to his golden retriever, Trixie. Those of us who have read Koontz’s novels know that dogs – and especially goldens – have always appeared prominently in his works; and Trixie’s picture has graced many a book jacket, sitting happily with her human owner. So it was no surprise how much this dog meant to both Koontz and his wife, Gerda. Trixie was a dog who not only changed their lives, but showed them a glimpse of the truly spiritual. As Koontz so beautifully writes, “She lived to love and to receive love, which is the condition of angels.”A BIG LITTLE LIFE is a very spiritual memoir, and Koontz is clear that he saw Trixie as an angel (in the overarching, grandly sacred sense). One of Koontz’s acquaintances referred to Trixie as a “holy soul,” and that is just the way Koontz portrays her. In the memoir he describes incident after incident that reveals Trixie as an amazingly special being, with the ability to connect with the humans in her world, to differentiate between good and evil, and to see beyond the mundane. Whether or not you believe the stories Koontz tells, it’s impossible to read this book and not feel the impact of this dog on the lives of her human owners.I’ve read most of Koontz’s novels – I have always found them to be both frightening and uplifting in their affirmation of the human spirit. Even his most disturbing novels (like INTENSITY) contain within them an element of hope that leaves the reader profoundly touched. My favorite Koontz novel has always been WATCHERS, in which a wonderful golden retriever named Einstein leads her human companions out of the darkness. That this novel was written over ten years before Koontz acquired his own wonderful golden is amazing!Read A BIG LITTLE LIFE – it will move you in unexpected ways. Even if you’re not a dog lover, you can’t help but be inspired by this animal’s impact on the humans in her life. Koontz writes, “We are a community of potential saints with a shared destiny, and each of us is a thread in a tapestry of meaning.” Trixie is the one who helped Koontz see this and live this – and in that alone she was an angel. This is a lovely tribute to a very special dog.