Becaus of a Dog BOOK REVIEW

• Date Published:
  August 11, 2026
• Length:
  352 pages—Listening Time: 8 hours 57 minutes
• Genre:
  NonFiction, Memoir
• Setting:
  Modern era, New York City's West Village and Quarna, a remote mountain village in Italy
• Awards
  Matthew Sigman is an award-winning performing arts journalist. This book hasn't been available long enough to attain literary distinctions, but I predict it will.
• Languages:
  English
• Sensitive Aspects:
  Pet death and intense pet-loss grief, breakup and romantic loss, emotional isolation and loneliness, career and financial instability, housing disruption, adult mental-health vulnerability and despair, impulsive escape/travel during grief, alcohol or nightlife references may be present, LGBTQ+ identity and relationships
• Movie
  There are no movie adaptations announced, in production, or released for the 2026 memoir Because of a Dog.
• Recommended for Book Club:
  Yes, especially groups that love animals and have a wanderlust spirit for travel.

I picked up Because of a Dog expecting a certain kind of story. You know the one: a grieving man travels to Italy, meets a soulful dog with knowing eyes and suspiciously excellent instincts, and somehow that four-legged stranger pulls him gently back toward life.

An Italian dog. Grief. Gorgeous travel. Honestly, I thought I had the emotional itinerary mapped out before I even opened the book.

Boy, was I wrong.

Matthew Sigman’s memoir is certainly an ode to dogs and the people lucky enough to love them, but it’s also far more expansive—and more surprising—than its premise first suggests. This isn’t simply a story about one dog rescuing one heartbroken human. It’s about what happens when grief cracks your life open and leaves you standing in the rubble, unsure whether you’re meant to rebuild the old version of yourself or wander off and become someone new.

And wander Sigman does.

For readers who get a little thrill from looking at a map and wondering, "But what’s out there?"—the remote village, the overlooked coastline, the small community most tourists breeze past—this book will feel like an invitation. Sigman doesn’t treat travel as a checklist or a shiny backdrop for personal transformation. The places he encounters matter because the people, animals, textures, meals, conversations, and unexpected detours matter. Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive with a grand speech and a dramatic sunset. Sometimes it shows up in a strange town, on an unfamiliar road, or in the quiet companionship of a dog who asks absolutely nothing of you except that you keep walking.

That’s the emotional heart of Because of a Dog: grief is not neat, linear, or particularly interested in your timetable. But hope can be stubborn. It can follow you across borders. It can surface in new landscapes and new communities. It can arrive, yes, because of a dog—but also because you were brave enough to keep moving long enough to notice it.

If you love memoirs that make you laugh softly one minute and stare out the window the next, this may be the travel-and-healing story you didn’t know you needed.

Because of a Dog is a moving memoir about the grief that follows the loss of a beloved pet—and the unexpected places where hope can begin to take root again.

After losing Augie, his devoted canine companion of eighteen years, Matthew Sigman is left navigating the strange, aching quiet that comes with saying goodbye to a dog who was far more than “just a pet.” Augie had been part of the rhythm of his life for nearly two decades, and his absence leaves a grief that feels both deeply personal and difficult to explain to those who haven’t experienced it.

Seeking distance from the familiar spaces filled with memories, Sigman travels to Italy. There, in a small, remote village far from the polished postcard version of the country, he finds himself welcomed into a community whose warmth, traditions, and everyday rhythms gradually offer him a different way to move through loss.

This is not a story about replacing a dog or being rescued by another animal. Instead, Because of a Dog explores how the love we share with our pets stays with us long after they’re gone—and how travel, human connection, and the willingness to enter an unfamiliar place can create room for renewal.

Tender, reflective, and filled with a deep appreciation for both dogs and the communities that hold us up when life becomes unbearably heavy, Because of a Dog is a memoir about carrying grief with you while still allowing yourself to discover beauty, connection, and the possibility of hope.

You should read Because of a Dog if you’ve ever loved an animal so completely that the thought of losing them feels impossible. Matthew Sigman understands that kind of love—and, more importantly, he doesn’t minimize the grief that follows it. This memoir makes space for the particular heartbreak of losing a pet who has been your daily companion, your comfort, and a steady presence through whole eras of your life.

It honors pet grief

Augie was Sigman’s dog for eighteen years, which means this isn’t a passing sadness or a tidy “life lesson” wrapped up in a few pages. The book recognizes that when a dog has been beside you for nearly two decades, their absence changes the shape of ordinary life. If you’ve ever caught yourself listening for paws on the floor long after a pet is gone, this book may make you feel seen rather than silly.

It offers hope without rushing you

Nobody wants to be told to “move on” while their heart is still somewhere on the kitchen floor beside an empty food bowl. Sigman’s story doesn’t pretend travel magically fixes grief. Instead, it explores how hope can return in small, quiet ways—through a new routine, an unfamiliar landscape, or a conversation with someone who welcomes you in without demanding that you be okay first.

It takes you somewhere unexpected

Italy may sound like a familiar memoir destination, but Sigman’s journey leads away from the glossy postcard version. In a small, remote Italian village, the pace slows down and community takes center stage. You get the pleasure of traveling somewhere new while also watching how a place—and the people who call it home—can become part of someone’s healing.

It celebrates connection

At its core, Because of a Dog is about the connections that sustain us: the fierce devotion between a person and their dog, the kindness of strangers, and the sense of belonging that can emerge when you least expect it. It’s a reminder that grief can make the world feel painfully small, but opening yourself to people and places can make it feel possible to live in again.

It’s for anyone needing a gentle nudge

Maybe you’re grieving a pet. Maybe you’re grieving a person, a relationship, a former version of your life, or simply a season that ended before you were ready. Either way, this memoir offers a tender companion for the road. It won’t hand you a twelve-step recovery plan—thank goodness—but it may encourage you to keep looking for the next place, person, or moment that makes tomorrow feel a little more possible.

Get Matthew Sigman's Because of a Dog

A tender, uplifting story about the unexpected ways one dog can heal a grieving family, Because of a Dog by Matt Sigman celebrates second chances, loyalty, and the transformative power of love.

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If Because of a Dog stayed with you because it understands that losing a dog can rearrange an entire life, these eight books offer more stories of animal companionship, grief, travel, and the stubborn return of hope.

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
After her father’s sudden death, Macdonald throws herself into training a fierce goshawk named Mabel, creating a remarkable blend of grief memoir, nature writing, biography, and falconry. It won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the 2014 Costa Book of the Year, with the latter marking the first time in a decade that a biography had taken the overall prize. If you appreciated Sigman’s refusal to make grief tidy, Macdonald’s equally raw account of finding a way to live alongside loss will hit home—though fair warning, this bird has far fewer manners than Augie.

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
Part of the Paws, Pages, and Plot Twists series. In this slim literary novel, a writer grieving the death of her longtime friend, mentor, and former lover unexpectedly becomes responsible for his enormous Great Dane, Apollo. It won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction and was also shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. If Because of a Dog made you think about the profound, life-altering bond between humans and dogs, you’ll likely love this intelligent, wry, and deeply tender meditation on love, mourning, and companionship. Full review coming.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Didion chronicles the year following the sudden death of her husband, examining the irrational thoughts, relentless logistics, and emotional whiplash of bereavement with piercing precision. It won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Readers drawn to Sigman’s honest self-reflection will find a different—but no less intimate—portrait of grief that never talks down to the reader or pretends healing follows a sensible schedule.

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck travels across the United States in a camper truck with Charley, his poodle, using the journey to observe landscapes, communities, contradictions, and the changing character of the country. Steinbeck received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Nobel committee specifically noted Travels with Charley as his then-latest account of a three-month, forty-state journey. If the remote Italian village and the sense of discovery in Because of a Dog were catnip to you, this classic offers the same pleasure of seeing a place through the eyes of a curious, humane traveler—plus a canine co-pilot.

The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg
Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Rick Bragg tells the funny, unruly, and heartfelt story of adopting Speck, a difficult stray dog, while confronting illness and an uncertain future. Bragg won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and this memoir has been praised for pairing his trademark Southern humor with a moving account of devotion between two damaged creatures. If you loved that Because of a Dog treats dogs as family rather than decorative side characters, Bragg’s hilarious and emotional storytelling will feel like a conversation with someone who truly gets it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Paws, Pages, and Plot Twists series selection. Narrated by Enzo, a wise and race-car-obsessed dog, this novel follows his beloved owner through family upheaval, illness, ambition, and loss. It became a New York Times bestseller and won the 2009 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award. If Augie’s presence in Because of a Dog reminded you how much dogs witness of our private lives, Enzo’s loving, observant point of view may have you laughing, crying, and looking suspiciously at your own dog as if they know everything. The full review is coming, I promise.

A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
Told from a dog’s perspective across several lives, this novel follows one devoted canine as he searches for meaning through the people he loves and the homes he finds. It spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list, including 63 weeks according to the author’s site. Readers who connected with Because of a Dog’s celebration of the enduring love between people and their pets may appreciate this more sentimental, hopeful exploration of why dogs matter so much in the first place.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
In this literary post-apocalyptic novel, a grieving pilot survives in the Colorado mountains with his aging dog, Jasper, until a distant radio transmission pushes him toward an uncertain journey. It was shortlisted for the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award and nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Readers’ Favorite Fiction. If Sigman’s travels appealed to the part of you that believes new terrain can change what feels possible, this is a much darker but beautifully written story about companionship, loss, wilderness, and choosing hope when the world feels empty.