The Speckled Beauty

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER ΓÇó From the best-selling,Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin’the warmhearted and hilarious story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behavedhalf-blind stray dog. Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boya defiantself-destructiveoften malodorous boya grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex manpicking fights with thousand-pound livestockand rolling in donkey manureand his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg’s housea starved and half-dead creatureseventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decisions. Speck arrived in Rick’s life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosischemokidney failureand recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helpedand he is helpingstillwhen he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg’s inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrowhumor and gritThe Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinarysustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.