I might not have picked up Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment (2009) ordinarily, but it is published by the marvellous Pushkin Press and they’ve never done me wrong so far 😊 It turned out to be a nice book about nice people, gently humorous and engaging. It wasn’t overly sweet or sentimental, and I enjoyed it immensely. The right book at the right time.
Ruth and Alex Cohen are an older couple looking to sell their East Village apartment for a million dollars (I suspect the intervening fifteen years since publication have seen the relative price rocket even further). They can currently manage the five flights to their front door but they’re aware this is likely to change. Alex is an artist and Ruth a retired teacher; they live with their beloved dachshund Dorothy.
“Alex brought Dorothy home the day Ruth retired after three decades as a public school English teacher. Those first few nights tending to Dorothy’s mystifying needs and constant demands had reminded Ruth of a Victorian novel in which the husband acquires an orphan for his greying childless wife to raise.”
We follow their potential sale over a weekend where Dorothy is in the animal hospital. She is also advanced in years and she suddenly can’t move her back legs. We are privy to her thoughts as well as those of her humans.
The scenes where Alex and Ruth are managing a sick Dorothy were really moving. They weren’t over-the-top deliberately heartrending, but they were very affecting in portraying the deep upset when an animal is ill.
“Alex touches her sleeve: he’s found the source of the alarm, the metal buckle on Dorothy’s faux leopard collar. Ruth had bought the collar because she thought it gave Dorothy a risque, haughty look, an old dominatrix, say, whose specialty was biting. Ruth watches as Alex unclasps the buckle at the nape of Dorothy’s neck with an intimacy and caution, a husband removing his ill wife’s necklace.”
Over the weekend Ruth and Alex will have to deal with their ambivalence about the move – neither afraid of change, but unsure if this is a change they really want to push for:
“He’s been covering these walls with his imagery for almost half a century, as methodically as a clam secretes its essence to make its shell. When Lily had first peered into his studio during the appraisal, she proclaimed it would make a perfect nursery.”
“She can almost see the spines of her library arranged alphabetically, floor to ceiling. Finding a home for her books is no less important to Ruth than finding a museum for his paintings is to Alex.”
There is humour alongside these more melancholy aspects, making the novel seem very real. Lily the realtor and the various people who attend their open house provide some respite from their worries about Dorothy. In the background there is also the unease of a possible terrorist at large in the city, which Alex and Ruth are concerned will affect their apartment price. They also struggle with pushing buyers for more money. Neither of these considerations endear them to themselves.
They are deeply principled people, monitored during the McCarthy era, and their struggles with these materialist considerations lightens their characterisation and stops them seeming priggish.
“His wife – whose ethics has been his bedrock and his muse and his shackles, who wouldn’t lie about her beliefs to the house Un-American Activities Committee even when it cost them friends, passports, his first retrospective, almost her beloved teaching job”
I thought Ciment beautifully evoked the love between these two people in old age too. They have been together forever and they still like one another. Ruth compensates for Alex’s poor hearing, he compensates for her poor eyesight.
“He has loved her for so long that he can no longer distinguish between passion and familiarity. He slips off her glasses, puts away her book, douses the light, and returns to the living room.”
Heroic Measures is also about the love of a city, and New York is portrayed as fondly as the human and animal characters. A lovely read throughout.
To end, Heroic Measures was adapted as Five Flights Up in 2015. It looks a faithful adaptation, although the location of the apartment and Dorothy’s breed has changed. I guess EB White is right about dachshunds’ temperament and the filmmakers needed a more amenable doggy actor:
madame bibi lophile recommends 
I love Pushkin Press too…and dogs (although I do understand why the breed was changed for the adaptations – dachshunds are not my favourite but of course there are individual dog exceptions to this before any dachshund owner takes offence!). So, although, I don’t think normally I would go for this sort of book – once again, you have lured me with your review to searching for this in the library catalogue. The themes and the quotes really appeal to me. I’m loving this armchair travel btw too – much less hassle and expense than the real thing, and I think you get much more insight into the culture and experience of what it might be like to live in these different places too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes Pushkin Press plus dogs is doubly tempting! I hope you enjoy this one if you do read it 🙂 I did like the themes and the writing style, although I wasn’t familiar with the author at all.
I really enjoy armchair travels – more within my budget!
LikeLike
Lovely to be reminded of this one. A great comfort read when you’ve had too much of the woes of the world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you liked this too Susan! It certainly hit the spot as a comfort read.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This looks sweet!
I’ve had a few conversations with people about the grief associated with selling house (they are initially dismissive and a bit surprised when I ask if they’re ‘grieving’ because the usual response is ‘it’s a house, not a person!’). Have also just finished a lovely book about grieving and a place – Unquiet by Linn Ullmann (review to come soon).
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is sweet but not sickly, I thought the author judged it just right.
I recently arranged a webinar at work on grieving losses, because I was aware people I work with grieve a lot of loss but don’t always recognise it as such, because as you say, we associate that term with bereavements of people. I’ll be really interested to read your review of Unquiet.
LikeLike
I love dachshunds, and while I didn’t grieve about leaving the houses I lived in with them, I certainly missed the dogs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I usually find by the time I move I’m ready to leave the place, but I still miss long-departed pets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This does sound lovely Madame B – sometimes we just need a comfort read!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was lovely Kaggsy – a perfect comfort read!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can see why this would be the perfect read at a particular time and I think it’s for me! Pushkin gives it the stamp of approval doesn’t it when as you say you wouldn’t have picked it up had it come from another less trustworthy source! But I do hate those ‘stickers’ on the cover. And thanks for the film too, I’m surprised I haven’t seen it – so a film and a book for my lists!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope you enjoy it if you give it a try Jane! Those stickers are awful aren’t they? I don’t know why they do that to book covers.
I’m very tempted by the film too – I’m going to see if I can view it somewhere hopefully.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Funny, this reminded me of a dog story that I also read because it was from a trusted publishing imprint and it turns out that was also about a dachshund (here, if you’re curious, as it is a European author, so perhaps of interest other dog-lovers in these comments)! I’d enjoy this one, too, likely.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for the recommendation Marcie – I do like a dog story but I need to know it will all be OK in the end!
LikeLike
Can’t cope with ill animals, but it does sound good. I’m trying to imagine a poor little dachshund coping with five flights of stairs! No wonder its little legs have given up!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I felt trepidatious about Dorothy too, but honestly I found it ok. She’s very spoiled (quite right too)!so I suspect she gets carried up and down the five flights!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s definitely nice sometimes to read about nice people. This does sound good. It highlights how difficult change can be, and how as humans we can become attached to houses. The dachshunds sound lovely too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes it gets the balance right, it’s real without being sentimental. Dorothy was a lovely doggy character!
LikeLike