The Dogs of Venice

Rowley (The Guncle) serves up a feel-good if fluffy novella about a heartbroken American man alone in Venice for Christmas. Paul’s partner, Darren, left him just before the trip to Italy they’d planned to take together, but Paul goes anyway. Rowley paints Paul as disarmingly sweet, stumbling across the threshold of his rented Venice flat and the language barrier to charm both the landlady and her daughter. Lonesome at first, he becomes obsessed with tracking a stray dog he spies out his window one morning, a creature he views as a symbol of resilience. He walks the streets of the art-filled city, discovering San Rocco, the patron saint of dogs and bachelors. He eats well, and after a tryst with a beautiful waiter, finally encounters the dog again and begins coming to terms with his loss (“the Dog too, was afraid,” Rowley writes. “Perhaps how to be alone wasn’t even the lesson Paul was seeking; how to be present was”). There’s not much nuance, but Rowley sprinkles in the right amount of sweetness and melancholy. This will do in a pinch. (Oct.)