Sonny Brewer Reading

On December 14, 2007, I had the opportunity to hear Sonny Brewer read from his new novel, "Cormac, The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing." The book is based on actual events, and tells the tale of Brewer's Golden Retriever, who ran away from his Alabama home while the owner was on a book tour in San Francisco.

Mr. Brewer read the prologue from the book which is about the death of his childhood dog. The prologue sets the stage for the narrator's love of his dog and the lengths anyone who truly loves his dog will go to in order to get his dog home.

The book does draw a grayed view of dog rescues groups as being over-zealous, seeing pet-owners as irresponsible rather than being empathetic to some one searching for a lost pet. This is the viewpoint of someone who loves animals; the same point of view that leads people to become animal rescuers. As a result, there is a message here for folks on both sides of the fence. The concerns of the pet parent and the rescuer are often the same with the welfare of the pet paramount. Love is at the heart of the matter and communication is key in making sure every dog has a safe and happy home.

Mr. Brewer is the owner of a book store in Fairhope, Alabama and founder of the annual "Southern Writer's Reading" held there each fall. He is also the editor of the anthology series "Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe," from MacAdam/Cage, and the author of "The Poet of Tolstoy Park" (Ballantine) and "A Sound Like Thunder" (Ballantine). The fifth volume in the Blue Moon Cafe series is published under the title "A Cast of Characters and Other Stories." Mr. Brewer advised that the sixth volume in the series has been assembled and will be published in the near future. There are plans for nine volumes in all.