Until he bought a pink dental plate after the Allies liberated France, my father only had two top teeth, with a gap between them, right in front. They were straw colored… With the two teeth he had on the bottom, that lined up with the top ones, he looked like a pair of pliers when he laughed out loud. Especially when something struck him as particularly funny and joyful, and he threw his head back… But it gave him a very paternal look, I think. After all, the dog also had yellowing teeth that stuck out when she smiled. It made us look related I always thought.

Pétain. Rural France. A defeated nation. An exasperated mother. A fundamentally undisciplined father, scarred by the Great War. And their son, who’s always right where he’s not supposed to be. Who does whatever he pleases. Who only hears what he wants to hear, not even his mother, who raises him in the certain knowledge that he’ll turn out bad, that Correctional Centers weren’t built for dogs, you know. With them, or rather near them, lives the dog, Rita. A mouth to feed. Good-for-nothing, even she. The son’s accomplice. The two of them, during the hard years, fighting the same good fight: avoiding blows and living their dog’s life as best they could.
Years later, Claude Duneton remembers and reminisces about the setting of his latest novel - Le Monument. Faithful to his native Corrèze, the author hasn’t forgotten that time, which has passed, when families stayed in the same village, when people stuck to their own kind. The Dog of My Life is the poetic, nostalgic account of a lost world.
The poetic account of the author’s rural childhood during the Nazi occupation of France. Pure Claude Duneton, a master craftsman with words, The Dog of My Life is also the tale of a dog’s life…