Small Dog is locked into a cage in the bleak opening paragraph of this redemptive tale. An elderly Yorkshire Terrier in a nearby cage gives the nervous young animal a stark warning: “You’re a dispenser now,” as the dames like to say, “for your new human.” She “must produce—no less than twice a year—desirable puppies” until, well, “you bear your last.” Small Dog does just that for year after year until she is too weak and worn out to be viable.
The early chapters of N.J. Lujan’s MIRI AND THE HONEYBEE see Small Dog in the confines of a puppy farm run by the callous and cruel Wayne and his only slightly more compassionate wife. Not knowing any other life, the dog makes the most of her situation, befriending mice and other creatures—most particularly a queen honeybee who almost acts as her eyes on the world she cannot see. Small Dog is a good and hopeful mother to the young pups she bears (until each is torn away from her), and her dire situation is evoked with simple, effective writing: “Sunlight streamed through the cracks and holes in the rotted wood panels, beaming heat into her cage, and with the still air, it was becoming an oven.”
As Wayne seeks to make the most money he can out of the dogs in his puppy mill, he decides to get rid of the aging Small Dog—who is no longer reliably productive after a decade’s work and has been worn out by overbreeding. He dumps her at the roadside, where she is rescued and eventually taken to a new forever home. However, this is not the end of the story—as Small Dog (now renamed Miracle, or Miri) has a part to play in the impending downfall of Wayne’s puppy-breeding empire.
All of this will be quite a change for readers of Lujan’s well-received Atropos Maker series of black-ops spy novels; but fans of those books can rest assured that, no matter how different the subject matter, Lujan’s skill in creating compelling characters remains. The anthropomorphic heroes of MIRI AND THE HONEYBEE may not have bombs, terrorists, and other high-stakes situations to cope with, but their own dangers are (for them in the moment) almost as dramatic. And if Lujan’s previous work has shown her ability to conjure up a villain, there can be few as unpleasant as Wayne—with his “sinister smile” and his “malevolent heart.”
A prerequisite for a reader to get the most out of this novel is that they be an animal lover (more specifically a dog person). The joys of getting to know and understand a dog will be recognized by all human dog parents, and Lujan wonderfully imagines just what the dogs might be saying if they could actually speak. Any reader who doesn’t care for animals is going to struggle, but those engrossed by this canine tale will get a cathartic thrill by this intriguing combination of dog determination and apian insight.
N.J. Lujan’s MIRI AND THE HONEYBEE is a delightful story. It’s a change of pace for the author, but one she manages with great style.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader