I was a big fan of The Guncle and The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley, so when I saw his The Dogs of Venice (print publication day October 14, 2025) available on NetGalley, I immediately requested it.
As the story opens, Paul finds out that his marriage is over but they had scheduled a trip to Venice over the Christmas holidays for the past year. While his ex moves out of their shared home, Paul decides to go to Venice on his own.
While wandering the city, he becomes obsessed with the street dogs and their freedom. It’s a sweet story, but too short. I hadn’t realized that it was a short story and not a novel when I requested it! I also found out that it was released as an Audible short in 2020 and is only now going to be available in print and e-book.
Paul is a sympathetic character–I got the sense that he went about the world in a little bit of a daze because he spends so much time inside his own head, and, after the breakup, he is lost. But the dogs help him find his way.
There was some mild anti-fat bias in his description of the landlord of his AirBnB as the story opened, but it was otherwise weight-neutral.
Reading While Fat 