![]() Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty, but Orlean makes a convincing case for the necessity of doing it, too. Nancy Milford did it first in her biography of Edna St. Orlean takes a daring tactic when it comes to her main story: she inserts herself into the story. Rin Tin Tin, his legacy and the men and women who obsessively kept that legacy alive over the last 80-odd years is what the book is about. These factoids are riveting, but they're not the main story. And when WWII broke out, Americans were asked to donate their dogs to fight overseas-after which the animals were returned to their owners. ![]() The entire concept of dog training was foreign to Americans until two (possible) lesbians traveled cross-country in a trailer, poodles in tow, demonstrating how to make your pet listen to you. ![]() Turns out, casual readers probably know nothing about how radically our attitude towards dogs has changed over the last 100 years. ![]() That Orlean takes on so much isn't entirely surprising that she mostly succeeds at all of it is downright shocking. ![]() Among the strands that comprise Susan Orlean's thorough, wide-ranging and ambitious Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend are the promised biography of America's first dog film star a history of the evolution of animals into house pets a shocking revelation that America had a dog army during WWII (where was that fact in the high school history books?) and a determined effort to pinpoint of what, exactly, fame is composed. ![]()
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