What Did I Do Wrong?

by Fanny Howe

Fiction. Episodic and picaresque, Fanny Howe's novella WHAT DID I DO WRONG? tells the story of a revolutionary mutt's journey through the kennels, parks, and suburban waste spaces around Boston in search of true freedom. This dog offers a firsthand account of the cruelty meted out to both animals and forgotten members of human society. Like The Golden Ass, WHAT DID I DO WRONG?takes on moral and spiritual questions without abandoning earthly appetites. In a twist on the fabulous tradition established by Apuleius, we are urged not to maintain our humanity but rather to look for the dog within. Illustrated by Colleen McCallion.

112 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2009

About the author

Fanny Quincy Howe was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. She was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Howe wrote more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Her major works include poetry such as One Crossed Out, Gone, and Second Childhood; the novels Nod, The Deep North, and Indivisible; and collected essays such as The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life and The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation.
Howe received praise and official recognition: she was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation. She also received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of California. In addition, her Selected Poems received the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets for the most outstanding book of poetry published in 2000. She was a finalist for the 2015 International Booker Prize. She also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Poetry Foundation, the California Arts Council, and the Village Voice. She was professor of writing and literature at the University of California, San Diego and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fable, Laura Riding said, is "a story told to impress certain ideas on the minds it was intended to interest." Here's a story of Blue and Ruby. They're mutts. They get separated from each other and from the Vet (Vietnam) who uses them well. They're re-united, it's somewhat ambiguous how. The impression my perhaps too-old mind has is that they're modeled on Francis and Clare, whose story Howe likes to tell, with clouds telling these two mutts auspices. But perhaps it was intended to interest others?

[Todd]

Thought provoking book from the perspective of a dog who writes with human intellect, and who speaks to the cruelty animals experience at the hands of humans, and the resiliency and value of the animal kingdom.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone thinks that prisoners are sitting in their cells waiting for someone to bail them out. Not true. Each one has a different desire. One might want to sleep and dream and be left alone; another to make friends with someone down the row; one might want to die in the cell; and another to escape and get away from people altogether; another to go home. I wanted to get away from people. I wanted to get the human mentality out of my system.

[Catherine Altice · Rating 5 out of 5]

She hit all my weak spots.

[Colettemariehayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This dog is rather depressing.