A Paean to Nonhuman Life

When Lydia Millet was a child and her guinea pig Trudy died, she asked her parents if anyone had ever committed suicide because of a pet’s death. “Probably not,” they responded diplomatically. For a few hours, Millet stared at her bedroom wall, sobbing and inconsolable. Then the grief passed: “It had gotten boring,” she recalls, “and I was quite hungry.”