NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM FOX 2000 STARRING MILO VENTIMIGLIA, AMANDA SEYFRIED, AND KEVIN COSTNER MEET THE DOG WHO WILL SHOW THE WORLD HOW TO BE HUMAN The New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein—a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it. “Splendid.” —People “The perfect book for anyone who knows that compassion isn’t only for humans, and that the relationship between two souls who are meant for each other never really comes to an end. Every now and then I’m lucky enough to read a novel I can’t stop thinking about: this is one of them.” —Jodi Picoult “It’s impossible not to love Enzo.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book.” —Sara Gruen “Fans of Marley & Me , rejoice.” - Entertainment Weekly “One of those stories that may earn its place next to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull , Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist , and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi .” - Portland Oregonian “ The Art of Racing in The Rain has everything: love, tragedy, redemption, danger, and—most especially—the canine narrator Enzo. This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book.” - Sara Gruen, Author of Water for Elephants “The perfect book for anyone who knows that some of our best friends walk beside us on four legs; that compassion isn’t only for humans; and that the relationship between two souls...meant for each other never really comes to an end.” - Jodi Picoult “The Art of Racing in The Rain has everything: love, tragedy, redemption, danger, and--most especially--the canine narrator Enzo. This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human.” - Sara Gruen, Author of Water for Elephants “I savored Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain for many reasons: a dog who speaks, the thrill of competitive racing, a heart-tugging storyline, and--best of all--the fact that it is a meditation on humility and hope in the face of despair.” - Wally Lamb, Author of She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True “It’s impossible not to love Enzo.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune “Splendid.” - People (3 ½ out of 4 stars) A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it. Garth Stein is the author of Enzo Races in the Rain! , based on the New York Times bestselling novel The Art of Racing in the Rain (and its tween adaptation, Racing in the Rain ). His other works include A Sudden Light , How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets , Raven Stole the Moon , and a play, Brother Jones . He is the cofounder of Seattle7Writers.org, a nonprofit collective of sixty-two Northwest authors dedicated to fostering a passion for the written word. Garth lives in Seattle with his family and his dog, Comet. The Art of Racing in the Rain A Novel By HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. ISBN: 9780061537967 Chapter One Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively. In order to make my point understood without question. I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose, and therefore, is a horribly ineffective tool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing, and an even less effective tool for making clever and complicated polysyllabic sounds that can be linked together to form sentences. And that's why I'm here now waiting for Denny to come home—he should be here soon—lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine. I'm old. And while I'm very capable of getting older, that's not the way I want to go out. Shot full of pain medication and steroids to reduce the swelling of my joints. Vision fogged with cataracts. Puffy, plasticky packages of Doggie Depends stocked in the pantry. I'm sure Denny would get me one of those little wagons I've seen on the streets, the ones that cradle the hindquarters so a dog can drag his ass behind him when things start to fail. That's humiliating and degrading. I'm not sure if it's worse than dressing up a dog for Halloween, but it's close. He would do it out of love, of course. I'm sure he would keep me alive as long as he possibly could, my body deteriorating, disintegrating around me, dissolving until there's nothing left but my brain floating in a glass jar filled with clear liquid, my eyeballs drifting at the surface and all sorts of cables and tubes feeding what remains. But I don't want to be kept alive. Because I know what's next. I've seen it on TV. A documentary I saw about Mongolia, of all places. It was the best thing I