по наводке i_shmael@lj читаю John Fante
С большим удовольствием читаю.

Очень хочется немножко поцитировать.

По сюжету герой, неудачливый писатель и сценарист, возвращается как-то вечером домой и находит у себя во дворе огромную спящую собаку, которую сначала принимает за медведя. Так начинается история. Пса  называют Stupid. Не из-за глупости.

He was a dog, not a man, but an animal, and in time he would be my friend, filling my skull with pride and fun and nonsense. He was closer to God than I would ever be, he could neither read nor write, and that was good too. He was a misfit, and I was a misfit. I would fight and lose, and he would fight and win.

И ещё.

I needed a dog. He simplified the circle of my life. He was there in the yard, alive and friendly, taking the place of other dogs who were dead and in the same ground over which he roamed. I could understand that - my dog friends, living and dead, joined together on the same piece of ground. It made sense. My father and mother lay in a graveyard up north and I was still alive on Point Dume, walking the same crust of California earth that held them. I understood that too.

I could walk out into the night with my pipe and look from Stupid to the stars, and there was a connection. I liked that dog. When I was a boy in Colorado I used to sit with my dog and look up at the same stars.
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Очень это мне созвучно.