‘Booksellers stuck up for it’: how France fell in love with a shaggy canine story | France

Cédric Sapin-Defour, a sports activities instructor and mountain fanatic, wrote the e-book, Son odeur après la pluie (His scent after the rain), not simply as a tribute to the love people really feel for his or her pets but additionally as technique of voicing the deep grief that may be felt after a canine’s dying, when all that’s left is a collar and hairs, and the home appears too massive with out them.

Despite France’s big love of pets – the nation has an estimated 8 million pet dogs – the publishing world didn’t anticipate the e-book’s success. It was launched quietly within the spring, with a print run of 4,300 copies and no promoting price range.

But employees in France’s thriving impartial bookshop scene started studying it and recommending it. By the tip of July it had grow to be a bestseller, promoting 70,000 copies, and gained in recognition by way of the autumn. This month, when it received the 30 thousands and thousands d’amis literary prize for books about animals, it had offered greater than 140,000 copies and is now anticipated to be a bestselling alternative for Christmas and new 12 months items.

After profitable the prize, Sapin-Defour instructed RTL radio: “I’m very happy to live in a world where a book telling a love story between a man and an animal can find such a big audience … When I meet booksellers and readers, I can see the book means something to them, it comforts and validates this possibility of loving an animal.”

His thought was to state plainly his love for his pet with out feeling ridiculous. Sapin-Defour dislikes the phrases “master” or “owner”, describing himself and Ubac as equals, with all of the foibles of an interspecies friendship. “I don’t know why we do our utmost to talk to dogs,” he writes. “Each of us probably secretly dreams of becoming the first human on Earth whose dog replies.”

But, as a result of dogs age a lot quicker than people, time is stacked towards the connection and the e-book can be a meditation on dying. Grief for pets in our society have to be spoken about, not hushed up, Sapin-Defour argues. The often-heard remark “Oh well, you’ll get another dog” is insufferable, he says.

In bookshops from Paris to the south of France, there may be now a gradual move of shoppers asking for “that book about the dog”.

Laure Barros on the Garin bookshop in Chambéry mentioned: “At the start it was described as an unexpected success, but actually lots of booksellers had read it and thought it was magnificent, so it’s a well-deserved success. Booksellers read it and stuck up for it and, thanks to them, it became a media phenomenon. It shows that readers trust booksellers.

“We’ve had lots of people coming in, readers with pets or dogs — they all see themselves in this story. But it’s more than that. I found it extremely well-written, and he manages to make a very simple, basic story – his life with his dog – something totally universal, a reflection on life.”

Manon Andrevon on the bookshop La Librairie des Bauges in Albertville mentioned: “We’re constantly asked about it by customers and it’s already being bought as a Christmas present, everyone is talking about it.”

Aliénor Mauvignier, the proprietor of a brand new small, impartial bookshop, Comment Dire, in Rennes, mentioned: “It’s a word-of-mouth success that started with booksellers reading and recommending it … People who love dogs, who have an attachment to their pets, see in this book a confirmation of that link they have to their own animal.”