The Star That Barked

AS SOON AS I saw what this was, or what it could be, I knew I faced trouble. Susan Orlean seizes the bone at the end of her first paragraph: “Rin Tin Tin has always been more than a dog. He was also an idea and an ideal—a hero who was also a friend, a fighter who was also a caretaker, a mute genius, a companionable loner. He was one dog and many dogs, a real animal and an invented character, a pet as well as an international celebrity. He was born in 1918 and he never died.”