Skip to main content

Book and Small Toy Bag Giveaway – Just Bill by Barry Knister


Dogs Rule Cats Drool is giving away the book, Just Bill and a small bag of dog toys.  This giveaway ends on August 17, 2012. Check out Dogs Rule Cats Drool to enter.

PLOT SUMMARY FOR JUST BILL, a fable
Following an exciting flash-forward prologue, the story begins on a May evening in Naples, Florida at the Donegal Golf and Country Club. 

From outside Glenda and Cliff Gilmore’s pool enclosure, four dogs watch as a grieving Glenda pours out her heart to Hotspur, her husband's border collie.  Two hours earlier, Glenda was shopping when Cliff died playing Frisbee with Hotspur.  Much younger than Cliff, and a former model, Glenda is the object of gossip and dislike among the older wives at Donegal. 

The reader is next introduced to Bill and his family.  The dog is seen as both simple and sympathetic, but a certain dislike is revealed in his master's wife.  She objected when her husband brought home a stray. 
From here, the story develops three plot lines.  Neglected by his dead master's grieving widow, the high-energy Hotspur grows frenzied.   Emma, a poodle, loves her refined, articulate mistress. But at eighty-four, “Madame” is starting to slip.  She’s been getting traffic tickets lately, and is more forgetful.
Most important are events with Bill's family.  His master's son has remarried, and has a new baby.  The three arrive for a visit, along with two older children from the father’s first marriage.  Ten-year-old Ruby used to be the light of her dad's life, but not now.



Soon after, a thunderstorm terrifies Bill.  With his master out of the house, a silent bond is established when Ruby stays with the dog until the storm subsides. But an accident occurs that leads a frightened Ruby to tell a lie. 
Out of this untruth rises the novel's central conflict. With the onset of hurricane season, Bill's family makes ready to head north to their lake home in Michigan.  Bill eagerly awaits the trip, but because of Ruby’s lie, his master reluctantly delivers his dog to an animal shelter.  

From this point, Bill's story is interspersed with that of his human family.  The big dog is adopted by a young man who wants a guard dog.  When his house is robbed, he returns Bill to the shelter.   Days later, in the confusion caused by a tropical storm, Bill escapes.  Running along a storm-lashed highway (the flash-forward scene in the prologue), Bill smells the Donegal Golf Club, his old home.  He dashes through the lightning-charged golf course, makes it to his master's house and takes shelter under a patio table. 

In the following days, the dog forages for food.  He is poisoned. When a girl comes to service his master's swimming pool, she calls Animal Services to collect the dying animal.
Before this happens, other dogs communicate recent events at the club.  Emma is gone, her mistress now in assisted-living.  As for two dachshunds seen earlier, they never flew north this year. Their owners are fighting, and the reader understands risky investments have ruined them.   


Up in Michigan, nothing is going well.  Bill's master can't help resenting having been forced to give up his dog.  While his son supervises the building of a new house, the family is staying at the lake with the grandparents.  There, a sad, guilty Ruby has retreated into games and crafts.  It is decided she will fly down with her grandfather to check on the Naples house.

And all summer, Glenda Gilmore has been grieving over her dead husband.  When she learns about a sick dog found at a neighbor’s, she goes to the shelter.  The attendant who let Bill escape feels responsible.  Bill seems to have no chance, but the girl gives Glenda hope. 

From here to the end of the novel, the value and power of the connection between dogs and people is concentrated in the bond that develops between Ruby and Glenda.  The grandfather comes to see the two have united in their effort to save his dog.  He knows what his wife would say about allowing Ruby to stay at "the floozy's," so he conceals it.  Something important is going on between the widow and little girl.
Parallels between pets and humans are obvious in Just Bill.  In our time, what is there to do but make leaps of faith, and hope for the best?  The novel’s central message  is both simple and profound: kindness is fundamental to us, and our love of dogs contributes to it.   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Frank Nash: the Most Inspirational English Teacher I Ever Did Know! By Vincent Zandri author of The Remains

I never set out to be a writer. Back in 1979, when I entered the Second Form in a 200 year old, all boys, military school called, The Albany Academy, I simply wanted to become a rock n’ roll star. Like Ringo or Keith Moon, I wanted to play drums in a huge rock band, make a ton of money doing it, get lots of girls, and see the world. While most of the uniformed boys sat attentively in math class, taking copious notes, I drew illustrations of huge drums sets and stared out the window. All that changed when for the first time, I was introduced to Frank Nash in my second term English lit and writing course. First thing that caught my attention was the classroom itself. The Academy was an old building even back then, having been built in the 1920s. Made of stone and strong woods, with real blackboards instead of chalk boards, the place seemed like a kind of time warp. A school caught perpetually in the 19th century instead of one that would see the 21st century in only two more decades. But

Seven Things About Dangerous Impulses

Today, I we have author F.M. Meredith visiting with us. I have had the pleasure of meeting Marilyn at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival a number of years ago. Join me as she shares seven things about her book.   1.       Dangerous Impulses is # 9 in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. Though every mystery is complete, every crime solved and the book written as a stand-alone, things happen to the continuing characters: the police officers and their families. Rocky Bluff is a small Southern California Beach community, located between Ventura and Santa Barbara, and mostly overlooked by tourists. 2.       In every RBPD mystery/crime novel there are ongoing characters. One of the most popular with readers is Officer Gordon Butler. Nothing ever seems to go easy for him. Though he is not the “star” in Dangerous Impulses like he was in No Bells , I think his fans will be happy with what he ends up doing near the end of the book. Other characters are: Detective Milligan and his wi

Don’t Let Perfection and Procrastination Steal Your Writing Success

“Writing happens when you stay consistent and keep encouraging yourself that it’s okay to put words on the page.”   - Rebecca Camarena, author   You’ve started your book and you’ve written a few pages. You’re on a roll and when you stop for the day you promise to write daily. But the next thing you know you haven’t written in days. When you start writing each time you type a sentence, your inner editor cringes. You’re terrified you’re going to write something dreadful, so you don’t write anything. You stare at the blank page. You may have even started to question whether you should be writing a book at all. In your mind you wrote something great that first day and you consider yourself a great writer. Writers have this image of the literary greats sitting at their typewriters banging out their stories. You think they sit down and keep writing from the first page to the last. Since you want to emulate them you feel that you have to be perfect each time you write. If this sou