The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

Right after the primary elections of 2004, DH decided to get involved with the volunteer effort for the Kerry campaign. For the most part, he was involved with local phone banking, but because California was considered a blue state already, volunteer focus was on the swing states. There were often opportunities to travel to Nevada or Arizona to help the campaign offices there. I often tagged along to help, and saw a whole new world I had only heard about on TV. That fall, I made phone calls, walked door to door, participated in rallies, and even had a brush with one of the presidential debates.

We decided to spend a week in Arizona in October as our yearly “big vacation.” Our plan was to start in Phoenix and volunteer for the Tempe office for a few days (as well as visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West), drive up to Sedona for a night, then end our trip in Flagstaff, where we could also see the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. It was a pretty good compromise of campaign work and vacation, though to tell the truth, I might have preferred a bit more vacation.

This trip through Arizona will be forever linked in my mind with Carolyn Parkhurst’s The Dogs of Babel, simply because the book accompanied me to each stop and kept me occupied through the more uninteresting moments of campaigning.

It was pure coincidence that we arrived in Phoenix two days before the presidential debate at Arizona State University. We were assigned duties around campus, which was a crazy scene of makeshift television studios and students trying to make their banners visible in the crowd as the cameras panned around. It must have been a hundred degrees out there. After a few hours of attaching signs to wooden sticks, I retreated to the shade of a tree to read my book.

To begin with, I was captivated by the premise of The Dogs of Babel. The main character, dealing with the grief of his wife’s death, becomes sure that her death was no accident. Moreover, he believes that their dog Loreliei must have seen everything that happened, and if only he could teach Lorelei to communicate with him, he could find some closure. What I ultimately loved about the book was the realistic way this crazy idea was played out, despite some unrealistic circumstances and characters.

Sedona was as beautiful as they say, but we were nonetheless glad to be staying only one night. Our bed and breakfast was painted in loud primary hues that were not the most relaxing to me, and there are only so many touristy southwestern-themed gift shops one can look in before needing a tall glass of water. It was the Slide Rock State Park north of Sedona that I wish we had more time in.

In Flagstaff, we were housed with a local volunteer, and we spent a day canvassing an apartment complex with a get-out-the-vote message. That night, as we settled into bed, I experienced one of those snapshot moments that my life consists of. Our trip to Arizona? Mostly a blur, but this moment clearly: our host, passing by our makeshift air mattress bed on her way to the bathroom, seeing me with The Dogs of Babel and asking, “oh, what are you reading?” The sweetest words.

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

tags: books book reviews arizona 2004 election carolyn parkhurst