Garth Stein's The Art Of Racing In The Rain

Author Garth Stein has written multiple popular books but when word of his now New York Times bestseller, The Art of Racing in the Rain, got out, it was thought that he would not be able to pull off a novel from his perspective of choice: a common household pet. But he has done the impossible by taking aspects from his life such as his love of animals, his family and hometown, as well as car racing, then applied it to the fast-paced life of Enzo, a caring, an oddly human-like dog. Like previously stated, Stein was said to be committing “literary suicide” (Garth Stein: illuminated) by narrating a novel from a dog’s point of view. Such a task is considered difficult because of a single, plain fact: a human cannot experience life through a dog’s eyes. This feat was not nearly as hard as it may have seemed because Stein successfully illustrated that “Enzo is nearly a human soul trapped in a dog’s body. He’s very anxious to be reincarnated as a person, so he can do all the things he wants to do” (First Person Plural: An Interview with Garth Stein). The idea for this novel came into play when he was no older than five years old and living in Seattle, where the story also happens to take place. As a young kid, he would “watch races on Saturday afternoon” (First Person Plural: The Art of Racing in the
His dog, Mugs, would often join them. He found it “interesting that she liked watching race cars” (First Person Plural: The Art of Racing in the Rain: An Interview with