The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a 2008 novel by American author Garth Stein that is narrated by a dog named Enzo. The novel was a New York Times bestseller for 156 weeks. A film adaptation of the same name directed by Simon Curtis and starring Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, and Kevin Costner as the voice of Enzo, was released in 2019. Summary The novel follows the story of Denny Swift, a race car driver and customer representative at a Seattle BMW dealership, and his dog, Enzo, who believes in the legend that a dog "who is prepared" will be reincarnated in his next life as a human. Enzo sets out to prepare, with The Seattle Times calling his journey "a struggle to hone his humanness, to make sense of the good, the bad and the unthinkable." Enzo spends most of his days watching and learning from television, gleaning what he can about his owner's greatest passion, race car driving—and relating it to life. He watches as Denny marries Eve, the birth of their daughter, Zoe, and then Eve's development of brain cancer, which only he can detect through his acute sense of smell. Enzo eventually plays a key role in Denny's child-custody battle with his in-laws and distills his observations of the human condition in the mantra "that which you manifest is before you." Enzo helps Denny throughout his life, through his ups and downs, and gets Zoe back. Background Inspiration for the novel came after Stein watched the 1998 Mongolian documentary State of Dogs, and then later in 2004 heard poet Billy Collins give a reading of the poem "The Revenant" told from a dog's point of view.