You Can Have a Dog When I’m Dead: Essays on Life at an Angle

Paul Benedetti’s essays paint a wonderfully funny portrait of family life today.

Paul Benedetti has a good job, a great family, and successful neighbours — but that doesn’t stop him from using it all as grist for a series of funny, real, and touching essays about a world he can’t quite navigate.

Benedetti misses his son, who is travelling in Europe, misplaces his groceries, and forgets to pick up his daughter at school. He endures a colonoscopy, tries out a Halter Monitor, and vainly attempts to lower his Body Mass Index — all with mixed results. He loves his long-suffering wife, worries about his aging parents and his three children, who seem to spend a lot of time battling online trolls, having crushes on vampires, and littering their rooms with enough junk to start a landfill.

Benedetti is Gary Lautens run headlong into Dave Barry — an everyman with every intention of doing the right thing, just as soon as he remembers where he left his wallet.