MICHAEL BRANDOW

"Extremely interesting and insightful." - Psychology Today

 

“In this hard-to-classify and hard-not-to-like book, we accompany Michael on his daily 15 hours of walking around the lower part of Manhattan with clients’ dogs as his, and our, trusty co-pilots. We stop for a few sniffs, get distracted by a chunk of something left along the curb, pick up more dogs, greet old friends, spot a few celebrities, give opinion-laced directions to tourists looking for ‘the village,’ hobnob (almost) with the likes of Lou Reed, who turns out not to be quite the guy we had hoped for, but whose Rat Terrier, Lolabelle is a sweetie. How can it miss?” - The Bark

 

 

Pounding the pavements of downtown Manhattan for twenty years and always on the move, a gnarly, scruffy-faced dog walker took time at the end of each day to keep a journal. Emptying his pockets of notes hastily scrawled on scraps of paper, matchbook covers, napkins, Chinese menus, leaves—whatever he could grab to record fleeting impressions while in transit—slowly he transcribed every detail, compiling this delightful tale about the dogs of average New Yorkers, the rich and famous, or just plain rich. Woven with endearing accounts of the antics of his canine wards, this meandering stroll is as much about their humans. A voyeuristic look into the private lives of clients, an urban navigation manual, a playful social critique—all is exposed from this unique sidewalk perspective. A walk-and-tell story. The Nanny Diaries of a New York dog walker.

 

 

MICHAEL BRANDOW writes on society, the arts, and canine culture. The author of several books and a sought-after commentator, he has contributed to many publications including the New York Times, Village Voice, Town & Country, Gizmodo, Salon, The Bark, and Dogs Today. His works have been listed in Best American Essays and he has been profiled in The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town.”

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