All dog owners have a tendency to apply human characteristic to their pets. “Were you sad when I was gone?” “Are you happy that I’m home?” they’ll ask Fluffy or Rover, as if Fluffy or Rover was capable of experiencing a person’s emotional palette. Of course, Fluffy and Rover are not. Fortunately, that small fact didn’t stop Hoboken resident Mark Handelman from chronicling the thoughts of his dog Bala in A Dog’s Guide to Life: The Bala Diaries (Herodias).All dog owners have a tendency to apply human characteristic to their pets. “Were you sad when I was gone?” “Are you happy that I’m home?” they’ll ask Fluffy or Rover, as if Fluffy or Rover was capable of experiencing a person’s emotional palette. Of course, Fluffy and Rover are not. Fortunately, that small fact didn’t stop Hoboken resident Mark Handelman from chronicling the thoughts of his dog Bala in A Dog’s Guide to Life: The Bala Diaries (Herodias). Promoted by the publisher as “a wry and heartfelt look at everyday life [that] will especially tickle dog lovers while giving grouchy non-dog lovers something to smile about as well,” A Dog’s Guide to Life is an illustrated diary of Bala, a delightful, insightful Doberman from Manhattan. Between searching for chicken bones and going for walks, Bala spends most of the book musing over his owners’ – or, as Handelman prefers to think of it – parents’ relationship (which is based on the author’s past relationship). In effect, the book is really less about Bala and more about his parents, Heidi and Jake. But, because it is written from Bala’s guileless and unsullied perspective, A Dog’s Guide to Life provides a unique perspective on some of the more quotidian aspects of life and relationships. For example, Handelman writes, “‘Sundays in New York’ are special for my Mom and Dad. But I don’t get Sundays at all. For one thing, the word ‘Sunday’ is a total misnomer, since the sun comes up every day. Also, Mom and Dad brag about ‘sleeping in’ on Sundays, though I’ve never seen them ‘sleep out.'” Based on reality I met with Handelman last Friday at Eureka’s, a Manhattan coffee shop conveniently located across the street from Brownstone Publishing where he works as an editor. Over a Fresh Samantha Soy Shake (him) and cup of coffee (me), we discussed Bala, relationships and writing. My first question was an obvious one: “Is The Bala Diaries based on a real relationship?” Handelman was perfectly prepared for the query. “The book was inspired by a real relationship between me and my ex-girlfriend,” he said without a trace of self-consciousness. “Half of what goes on in the book more or less happened. And half I had to create to make it a coherent story. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine which scenes were real.” As I tried to imagine what was real and what had been fabricated, Handelman continued. Perennially curious, I dared not stop him. “The true part is, we were given Bala by a friend of mine who got him from North Shore, an animal shelter out in Long Island. When he decided he couldn’t take care of Bala anymore he gave Bala to my ex-girlfriend and me. And then Bala, of course, became my best buddy. I loved him to death. And that’s the way the book got started. My girlfriend and I were having these fights, you know, the typical fights. And late at night, one of us would stomp out of the bedroom into the living room and mope on the couch. And who is always sitting just beside us? This guy.” Handelman lovingly looked towards a portrait of Bala lying on the table. “This beautiful dog is sitting there. And he was always amazingly comforting in that dog way. I used to look at him and think, ‘What do you make of all of this?’ And I would sit down and actually scratch out on a pad a diary entry. Maybe I was too ashamed to call it my own diary. But I would do it from his point of view. ‘Mommy and Daddy, those idiots, they’re fighting again. This time it’s because …'” Girlfriends and wives Wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a collarless Oxford, his thick brown hair fashionably sculpted, Handelman was both humble and loquacious when I praised his book. “I’m always amazed and flattered when someone likes what I write,” he said. “I really write things for myself. This was just a piece of self-therapy.” So, how does the ex-girlfriend feel about the piece of self-therapy? “The ex-girlfriend question,” he said with a sigh. “It took her aback the first time she saw it. She was a little bit, ‘Oh my god. You wrote about us.’ But she’s a little bit dramatic and dynamic so I think she came around to and was like, ‘Oh, OK. So he’s lionizing our relationship.’ And she also saw the bigger message. That the love of Bala is really the engine here. It just happens to be that he’s telling the story of his yuppie dysfunctional parents. But at the very least, she owed me the blessing of the book because I let her have Bala when we broke up. And that wasn’t and easy thing to do.” The next obvious question: Does she still have Bala? “Bala is retired to my ex-girlfriend’s mom’s house which is up in Connecticut,” he said. “He lives like a king up there. For a long time I had visitation rights. Which was great. Until I got married. My wife Kathy has a pug named Zoe.” What does the wife think about Bala’s chronicle of his former relationship? “She had some issues with this book coming out, because the book is obviously a reflection of my old relationship,” he said. “Still, she’s very supportive and incredibly excited for me and my writing career. But,” there’s always a but, “she made me promise that if there is a sequel it will be The Zoe Diaries. And so I began outlining that project. And Zoe is very photogenic. A pug is just a natural star and Zoe loves the attention.” Beyond self-therapy or a record of his former romance, Handelman wanted to celebrate the unconditional and enduring relationship he had with his pet. “Back in 1995, there wasn’t a lot of dog’s point-of-view stuff out there. Now, if you go into Barnes & Noble and look in the dog section, there are some dog’s point-of-view projects. I would like to think I was in the vanguard of that. People are finally recognizing the incredible value and benefit and learning we get from our pets. Our dogs can teach us how to relate – how to be better boyfriends and girlfriends and better husbands and wives.” He continued, “‘Bala’ is a Native American name and it means spirit companion. They knew long before we polluted Westerners, that our relationship with animals is equally important to our relationship with people. Bala means spirit companion, and he is a spirit companion.”
Our Digital Archive from 2000 – 2016
