Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Egg
Chapter 2: Sugaring the Bit
Chapter 3: Old Homes
Chapter 4: The Swan with a Broken Beak
Chapter 5: The Sixty Thousand-Dollar Dog
Chapter 6: The Death of a Wasp
Chapter 7: Bat Dreams
Acknowledgments 

About the Author

Lauren Slater is the author of six books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying- A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner's Box, the short-story collection Blue Beyond Blue, and Love Works Like This, which chronicled the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, multiple inclusions in Best American volumes, and a Knight Science Journalism fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Slater was a practicing psychologist for eleven years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the clinical and later executive director of AfterCare Services. Slater lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Praise for The $60,000 Dog

"Slater continually surprises wtih connections she makes. Beautifully written, and not just for animal lovers." —Kirkus Reviews

"A thoughtful examination of a sometimes difficult life, ameliorated and often alleviated by connections with nature and animals. . . .Dogs, wasps, and bats also figure in a poetic narrative that gives the reader a melodic look into a deeply considered life."—Booklist

“Assumption-busting, gut--wrenching, life-affirming.”—Pam Houston, MORE magazine

"Edgy, revelatory, disturbing, and beautifully written, Lauren Slater’s The $60,000 Dog is too unsentimental and idiosyncratic in structure to be lumped in with more traditional animal books."—Boston Globe

“A thoughtful memoir unravels the depth of our animal attachments.”—Elle 

"It's the fearlessness along with the beauty that makes The $60,000 Dog a work of lasting achievement."—Minneapolis Star Tribune 


Praise for Lauren Slater

“The beauty of Lauren Slater’s prose is shocking. . . . Slater’s vision is, ultimately, one of unity and possibility.”— Claire Messud, Newsday
 
“A lovely writer, easily read, often poetic.”— Michael Winerip, The New York Times Book Review
 
“An enormously poetic and ebullient writer.”— Elle
 
“Slater’s writing is confessional without being sentimental, honest without being overbearing.”— Joseph P. Kahn, The Boston Globe
 
 “Slater is more poet than narrator, more philosopher than psychologist, more artist than doctor. . . . Every page brims with beautifully rendered images of thoughts, feelings, emotional states.”—The San Francisco Chronicle