Friday Pet Blogging: Stuie

By Stuie

as dictated to and translated by Susan Fensten, Senior Publicist

I’m often understandably mistaken for a Pomeranian. We are cousins. I am a 4 year-old German Spitz Klein [small Spitz] and I was adopted by my human friend at BARC Shelter in Williamsburg. It was love at first sight.

But don’t let my silky fur and cute, little cookie face fool you, when it comes to reading I’m dead serious. Life is too short and there’s no time for fiction. I’m a true crime lover. There’s nothing better than curling up on my pillow spending hours lost in the fervor of a terrifying crime spree and its aftermath. The excitement, the fear, the victim/s, the suspect/s, the cops, the investigation, I love it. Then ultimately the trial and surprise verdict keeps me turning the pages.

Murder is the territory and the idle, filthy rich are the adventurers in this unique true crime story. Savage Grace: The True Story of Fatal Relations in a Rich and Famous American Family by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. Born into staggering wealth and privilege, Tony Baekland’s fate was sealed by the very elements which propelled him throughout his tragic life. His grandfather was the inventor of plastic, bakelite it was called, in its early form. A suffocating, beautiful mother, Barbara and a critical, distant and demanding father Brooks Baekland both lit the fuse that would later shock the world elite, the beautiful people. Poor unfortunate Tony. What could he do? Nothing, except to maybe put an end to all of the noise in his mind.

The book is told entirely through actual correspondence between family members and their wheel-heeled, well off friends. The Baeklands trundled aimlessly to the glamorous ports of the world, staying only for short spates before pushing on, writing mountains of letters, ever rambling. Chasing endless pursuits each more futile than the one before it. In their own words they express finely nuanced details about themselves as only the self can know. They reveal their insecurities, egos, their pettiness and pomposity, their dreams and crushing disappointments in themselves and in each other. It’s a jungle of madness and murder, letters and locations and dark secrets.

My adoring human friends are taking me to Maine next week and I cannot wait. We are going back to Stonington on Deer Island in Penobscot Bay. We went there last year. I loved the pines, the tide washed coves, the sharp-eyed fledglings and most of all, the lobster rolls! Seacoast Maine: People and Places by Martin Dibner with photographs by George E. Tice is the perfect companion to your Maine travels. The author begins, “Maine is country divided in three parts—the Maine coast, Aroostook County, and the rest of Maine.”

He’s right. My human friend’s mother was born in Houlton, five miles from the Canadian border, deep in potato country. It’s a whole other world compared to southern Maine and the rocky, coastal areas. I discovered the book on our last trip. It’s a moving photographic and narrative tribute to the rugged Americans Down East, the mystical, pine fortresses of the sea coast land and the artists who gathered there. Winslow Homer at Prout’s Neck, John Marin at Small Point, William Zorach at Robinhood, Jamie Wyeth, Zero Mostel, and Rockwell Kent on Monhegan. It is out of print, but we should all support our used booksellers and search it out. You’ll be inspired.