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Copyright 2003, 224 pages, hardcover, black and white illustrations
Of all the animals in the world, only the dog has chosen to share his life with man, and while the dog may have benefited from the arrangement, man has gotten the much better end of the deal. With one notable exception: the dog mercifully has no foreknowledge of his own mortality.
Even more mercifully he has no knowledge that he and the person he loves won't be together forever. Man, for all the gifts he has been given, for all his cleverness and adaptability, his ingenuity and imagination, has been cursed with the knowledge of his own mortality and, perhaps even more painful, the knowledge that his best friend will leave him behind.
To Absent Friends is a collection of stories of dogs told by those they left behind. Most of the dogs in these stories were good dogs; some were what we may politely describe as eccentric, some were mischievous, some were just plain bad, but all were loved, and all are missed.
This sometimes humorous but always touching collection contains stories and poems by John Berendt, Lord Byron, Ruth Pollack Coughlin, Stephen Crane, John Galsworthy, Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, Sunny Hancock, James Herriot, Gene Hill, Rudyard Kipling, Ben Hur Lampman, Alistair Macleod, Gary Paulsen, Ross Santee, Susan Schaeffer, Burton Spiller, James Thurber, John Updike, Stephanie Vaughn, and Randy Wayne White.
Jameson Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was a working actor for more than a quarter of a century, getting his first paying job while on suspension (girls' dorm, vodka) from Beloit College. While he has appeared in more plays than he can remember and in numerous television and feature films (some of which he would prefer to forget) Mr. Parker is best remembered for his role as A. J. in the long-running hit series, Simon and Simon.
Mr. Parker is currently the writer and co-host (along with his wife, actress Darleen Carr) of the TV show A Dog's Life on OLN. He is also the author of An Accidental Cowboy, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press. At one time or another in his life, Mr. Parker has practiced karate, boxed, played polo, swum competitively, run track and field, and skied, with the result that he now hurts in a lot of places where he shouldn't. Visit him at www.jamesonparker.com.
"I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better. They fight for honor at the first challenge, make love with no moral restraint, and they do not for all their marvelous instincts appear to know about death. But being such wonderfully uncomplicated beings, they need us to do their worrying." - George Bird Evans
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