Inside Story (9780593318300)

or a story. But this is not fiction. In early February I dreamt I was very young again, and I and my brother and sister heard that Jane’s dog Rosie was in great distress (a ‘ruby’ Cavalier spaniel, Rosie was put to sleep with much sorrow in the mid-1970s); and we set off to find her, as if on a quest in an idealistic children’s book. Nicolas asked, ‘What shall we do when we find her?’ ‘Cuddle her,’ Myfanwy firmly answered. We found Rosie, who was the wrong colour but was certainly suffering, and we set about giving her comfort. Then I woke up. Later that day I realised why, in dream logic, Rosie was crying. She was crying because her mistress was dead.

Illustration Credits

1 Saul Bellow on the New York subway in 1975 © Neal Boenzi / New York Times / Redux / eyevine; 2 Elizabeth Jane Howard © John Hedgecoe / TopFoto; 3 Bellow and Kollek in 1987 © Max Jacoby, used by permission of the Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; 4 The Bellows on their wedding day, used by permission of the Saul Bellow Estate; 5 Eliza’s drawing of the 9/11 attacks, author’s own; 6 Isabel Elena Fonseca © Marion Ettlinger; 7 Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis and Tina Brown © Photograph by Dafydd Jones; 8 Christopher Hitchens and Anna Wintour, used by kind permission of Gully Wells; 9 Christopher Hitchens under arrest © Billett Potter, Oxford; 10 Larkin family portrait, used by permission of The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Philip Larkin; 11 Ruth Bowman, used by permission of The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Philip Larkin; 12 Hilly with pet dogs in 1958 © Daily Mail / Shutterstock; 13 Saul Bellow and Martin Amis, used by permission of the Saul Bellow Estate]; 14 Kingsley and Hilly Amis at the time of their marriage; 15 John Keats in His Last Illness, from ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine’, May to October, 1883 (engraving) © Bridgeman Images; 16 Christopher Hitchens © Brooks Kraft / Getty Images

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