A review by meganmilks
Afterglow (a Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles

5.0

4.5! Loved much of this, a lot. The essay on Foam as a concept/metaphor for thinking about knowledge/writing is my favorite, I think, but many of the doggo pieces are glorious and sui generis. Many adopt a style that is a kind of frothy walk / flaneur avec dog; and then there's Rosie (the dog) speaking from the dead, "ghostwriting". Myles is sometimes Jethro here, sometimes she, sometimes he, and Rosie, always, is god. Sometimes the pov rolls back and forth between Eileen and Rosie, and the effect is startling, frustrating, funny -- the playfulness and premise both remind me of Yoko Tawada's Memoirs of a Polar Bear (a novel). These essays (it's really more collection than memoir) move with twitchy buoyancy, spark with a smartalecky glint, all held by, holding this kind of awe at the magnitude of love for this dog, Rosie: "I felt less ambivalently loving than I have ever felt in my life."