PORTLAND, Maine — We all have major turning points in our lives; moments that change us. We also have moments we don't particularly pay much attention to, but define us all the same. Jennifer Finney Boylan writes about those moments, looking back on what she learned about herself through her love of each of the dogs who passed through her life.
"Good Boy: My Life In Seven Dogs" is a memoir from the bestselling author, who also taught in the department of English at Colby College for 25 years.
"I came out as transgender 20 years ago and I'm over 60 now; so more than a third of my life I've lived as a woman, and it's the most recent part of my life," says Boylan. "It can be hard to remember what it was like back in the day. Sometimes I think of my life before coming out as trans the way an ex-patriot might think of the country of her birth. But if it was hard to remember what it was like to be someone else, someone younger among other things, all of that is brought back to me when I think about the dogs that I've had. I remember those dogs, I will always remember those dogs; I remember those dogs better than i remember myself because I gave so much of myself to those dogs."