Unique to The New Yorkers is the bridge between the classics of the past and the accessibility of contemporary fiction. The line is not blurred but infused in the trademark tapestry of Schine’s sensibility.

WOOF Patrol spent time with Cathleen Schine on the phone and through emails:

WOOF Patrol: Many reviews of The New Yorkers treasure the book’s chronicling of living and falling in love on one block in New York City. They touch upon the old-fashioned screwball comedy situations reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy film moments.

Did you have a favorite scene in The New Yorkers that captures what the reviewers refer to as ‘old-fashioned’ screwball situation?

Cathleen Schine: I love screwball comedies. One of my books, Rameau’s Niece, was consciously shaped like one. In terms of movies, this novel seems to me more like a French movie from thirty years ago - with all its intersecting stories and glancing romances - than a screwball comedy. But there is inevitably a screwball quality to comic stories about unlikely romance. That is in many ways what this book is about. There is one chapter in particular, the one about the blackout, that has a kind of surreal screwball quality to it, I think.

New York City provides a pinnacle background character to Schine’s novel. Manhattan, often found cast in a media-heightened ‘pit bull’ perception, is introduced to readers without the negative stereotypes. With earnest and earned sentimentality, The New Yorkers portrays the everyday lives of ordinary people and their daily activities. Beneath the urban canvas of the Time Square and Wall Street extremes exists the Big Apple’s charm.

Schine’s characters shop at the Korean market on the corner, eat at the nearby restaurant called Go Go Grill (Go Go meaning dog in Chinese) and canine-stroll along the tree-lined Central Park. Storyline and character development is enhanced by benchmark detailing of this one particular neighborhood. The flowers at the corner store, the passersby on the street, various dog breeds on their walks are all easy to visualize and help carry the plot along.

The first pooch introduction in The New Yorkers is Beatrice, a rescued oversize pit bull mix — “so white it was almost pink”. Beatrice belongs to Jody, a music teacher suspecting that spinsterhood is an inevitable situation for herself. In the cold weather Jody dresses Beatrice in a pink sweater.

W.P.: In any way is New York City comparable to Beatrice in that sometimes people without personal experience view Manhattan as dangerous or intimidating?

C.S.: Yeah! And what they don’t realize is that it’s really wrapped in a big, gigantic hand-knit pink sweater. I like that idea. Actually one of the reasons I wanted to write The New Yorkers was to write about New York City. I think a lot of people get their ideas about the city from TV. So they think it’s either a dangerous warren of dark streets inhabited by insane criminals or they think it’s a sparkling boulevard of fabulous bars inhabited by single women in spike heels and their wealthy hipster boyfriends. But really New York is a constellation of little neighborhoods inhabited by people who go to work and walk their dogs. Ordinary but deeply interesting people. I wanted write about that New York, and the physical New York of seasons and flowering trees and snowstorms and mud and daffodils.

W.P.: Have pit-bull owners written to you with regards to showing the lovable side of the breed? If so, can you share a few of their comments with us?

C.S.: I have gotten a lot of thank-you’s from pit-bull owners. And I hear about happy rescued pits snoring contentedly in their owners’ beds.

W.P.: Dog Trouble, your 2005 essay that ran inThe New Yorker, became the catalyst for The New Yorkers. It’s based on Buster, a rescue dog that you and your partner took in from a Los Angeles animal shelter.

C.S.: Dog Trouble, (click here) which ran in The New Yorker in January 2005, is what made me realize I wanted to write the new novel. It is the sad and occasionally comic tale of a doomed little dog and a New York block. When I finished it, I realized there was so much more I wanted to write about New York and about living here with a dog. So I wrote The New Yorkers!

W.P.: Buster was given a great deal of love and compassion. However Buster arrived with severe behavioral and emotional issues. More than one veterinarian, dozens of trainers as well as you, finally came to the understanding that euthanizing Buster was a safety issue for others as well as himself. The decision, after great deliberation, and with all other options exhausted, was heartbreaking.

What do you think you learned the most from your relationship with Buster?

C.S.: I can tell you that I learned a fair bit about obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism and different kinds of seizures and neurological disorders and psychopharmeceuticals. We did a lot of research about what could have been the cause of Buster’s behavior. I also learned about New York City. Really, after living here for 30 years, I discovered the city for the first time. Having a dog in New York makes you so aware. And having a dog who tries to bite everyone gave me a lot of insight into the people I had been living with for years but had never spoken to. Most of them were unbelievably sympathetic. On a more personal level, I learned humility—real, painful, no-matter-what-I-do-I-can’t-fix-this humility. And then, most important, the poignant love for such a helpless and ultimately hopeless little creature. It was a very painful time. I still think about it and wonder what else we could have done.

Six months later Schine and her partner made the decision to get another dog. This time the focus was on a puppy, a fresh start and the bi-coastal need for a small dog breed. Their search began on the internet rescue sites: A.S.P.C.A., the city pound and the North Shore Animal League. They also brought along a trainer to avoid as you put it, “falling under the spell of another charismatic but impossible dog.”

W.P.: Did Virginia, your trainer, provide guidance? What was she looking for, or avoiding, when observing at the dogs in the shelters? If she wasn’t with you might you have found yourself in another Buster scenario?

C.S.: Having Virginia come to help us work with Buster was like having the sun come out on a turbulent day. She was a dose of sanity when we went to look at dogs, too. All the best dogs we know are rescue dogs and we really wanted to get one from a shelter, but we were so burned that we didn’t trust ourselves at all. Virginia came and we watched how she interacted with the dogs instead of just responding to the one who looked the saddest (my method). But in the end we couldn’t find a small breed puppy, so we talked to a lot of breeders of Cairn Terriers and found one in Maryland and drove down and got Hector. We didn’t choose him, either. The breeder did. He was the one she didn’t want to show. We were incredibly lucky with him. He is the sweetest, easiest, mellowest terrier on either coast — except when he sees a possum or a helicopter. But who can blame him for that? Possums and helicopters are pretty exciting.

W.P.: Do you find taking Hector, your Cairn terrier, for walks inspires new stories? Or innocently introduces you to new characters via strangers that come over to pet Hector?

C.S.: Absolutely. The two times I come up with ideas are when I take a shower and when I walk Hector. They’re the most private times of the day, the only times of the day when I can really think. On our walks, we meet a lot of people and dogs and I am a complete sucker for other people’s dogs and always stop to pet them. But there are also those long, wandering parts when we just saunter along. It’s very companionable and I can daydream, which is how I think.

W.P.: Rumor has it that The New Yorkers might become a Broadway musical. Is there any truth to the gossip? If so, will Hector be considered for any parts?

C.S.: There have been some negotiations going on. Nothing is definite so far. But even if it does happen, I feel I must protect Hector from the rigors of show business. I don’t want him to end up like poor Britney Spears.

Summer officially kicks offs off on June 21st and WOOF Patrol declares The New Yorkers a great beach read. It’s now available in paperback for easy travel.

Cathleen Schine is the author of eight novels, including Rameau's Niece, The Love Letter, She is Me.