Editorial Content for The Hour of the Wolf: A Memoir
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Novelist and journalist Fatima Bhutto jumps right into the fray in the opening section of her new memoir, THE HOUR OF THE WOLF. This story, originally published in the journal Granta, focuses on the harrowing and heartbreaking first pregnancy of her Jack Russell terrier, Coco. It results in a stillbirth, and Bhutto observes Coco seeming to grieve her loss, in part by adopting (against her vet's advice) Bhutto's own hand as a substitute for her missing pup.
This chapter is at times difficult to read. But it also helps set up several of the themes to which Bhutto will return throughout the memoir, especially the pain of loss, the longing for motherhood, and the strong bond between dogs and their humans.
"[Bhutto's] anecdotes serve to provide a background of love and constancy that sustain Bhutto, even as the rest of her life grows increasingly stressful and chaotic."
Throughout, Bhutto relates specific anecdotes about her life with Coco (and, later, with the puppies resulting from a subsequent successful pregnancy), interspersing them with more philosophical and scientific reflections on the historical, cultural and psychological bonds between people and dogs. These anecdotes serve to provide a background of love and constancy that sustain Bhutto, even as the rest of her life grows increasingly stressful and chaotic.
The source of much of this stress is Bhutto’s long-distance romantic partner, known throughout only as "the man." She portrays him as charismatic, almost magnetic, especially in public, but increasingly volatile and emotionally abusive in private. She describes how, over the course of a few years in her late 30s, she repeatedly considers ending their relationship, only to be convinced to make it work a little longer. Part of her impetus for staying with the man is her overwhelming desire to become a mother. Although he exhibits little desire to make a family with her, he offers just enough hope to keep her dangling.
In the background of this developing story is Bhutto's history of loss, specifically the violent death of her father when she was a teenager (which she wrote in a previous memoir). She offers just enough detail about those events here for readers to understand how that prior trauma might affect her more recent relational circumstances.
Fittingly, it's the man's disturbing behavior toward Coco and her pups that finally gives Bhutto the strength to step away and start over. In doing so, she expresses gratitude to her dogs for encouraging her to take time to stop dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, but instead "to remember only that we must live now and do so with purity, free of fear and alive with the possibilities of wonder."
Teaser
Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade. By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.
Promo
Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade. By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.
About the Book
From acclaimed journalist and novelist Fatima Bhutto, whose work has been hailed as “intense and powerful” (NPR), comes a searing, intimate memoir of grief, heartbreak and what we owe the natural world --- all learned from the dog who saved her life.
Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade.
By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.
In THE HOUR OF THE WOLF, Bhutto weaves reflections on love, loss and healing with poignant memories of family, a yearning for motherhood and meditations on literature, cinema, art, politics and the wild world around her. Heartbreaking yet hopeful, this kaleidoscopic memoir is a testament to resilience, self-acceptance and the restorative power of friendship --- especially that of one small, brave dog.
Audiobook available, read by Fatima Bhutto
