Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Emilie Richards | Finding Nemo
Uncategorized / February 11, 2008

Nemo came into our lives the way the best ideas for novels often do. One morning my husband and I had no dog. We had memories of two who had aged and died, dogs we had loved for years and mourned with a startling intensity. We also had vows that we would not get another pet while our lives were so busy. Then we got the phone call.“Mom,” our oldest son, the lawyer and country gentleman began, “we found a puppy dying in the grass off our road. Jim–” their neighbor, “nearly ran him over with a bush hog. If I hadn’t stopped to talk to him, and he hadn’t turned off the tractor. . .” We didn’t need a dog. “What kind of puppy?” I asked, because like any mom I wanted to keep the conversation going. “Who knows. Spotted, starving and sick. I’m not sure he’ll make it.” He did make it, of course–or why would I tell this story? My son and daughter-in-law carefully nursed the foundling back to health. Then puppy came to visit one afternoon and simply never left. I couldn’t bring myself to name him for days, not until my husband returned home from…