The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People Audiobook

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author comes the warmhearted and humorous story of how his life was transformed by his love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog.

Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature, seventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decisions.

Speck arrived in Rick’s life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rosebushes.

Written with Rick Bragg’s inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.

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“Amid dark days, bright Speck shows up at just the right time. How fortunate for readers that the joy of his presence—enhanced by the wit and wisdom of Bragg’s inimitable prose—will resonate far beyond the Bragg homestead.”

— Shelf Awareness