A highly original, tragicomic novel as seen through Sirius, an extraordinary dog who helps his Jewish family escape from Germany to California, becomes a Hollywood star, and ultimately contributes to Hitler’s downfall.
Levi, a fox terrier, lives with his family in a grand townhouse in Berlin. Each day he enjoys a walk through the neighborhood, where people greet him by name. But the year is 1938, and Berlin is no longer safe for Levi or the Liliencrons, his Jewish owners. They rename him Sirius, after the constellation, to protect him.
One night, Nazi troops storm the city and begin to search houses. Sirius alerts the family, and they manage to flee to California. In his new home, Carl Liliencron becomes a chauffeur and Sirius befriends everyone from Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant to Rita Hayworth and Jack Warner. He is renamed Hercules and becomes a canine movie star. Little does Sirius know that he’ll soon have to perform his most difficult acting role yet, when through a series of exceptional events as World War II unfolds, he winds up at the right hand of Hitler himself. Can Sirius help the German resistance, derail the Führer, and reunite with his family? Or is the cost of peace too high?
With charisma, heart, and delightfully spry prose, Sirius is an enchanting fairy tale about love and humanity and a roving exploration of a momentous historical moment. Like My Dog Skip and The Artist, this feel-good novel will make you stand up and cheer.
Download and start listening now!
“British narrator Mark Meadows puts listeners in the mind and world of Sirius…Meadows takes on different voices and accents for the wide array of characters, even the nonhuman. His German-accented reading can make some names hard to discern but lends a strong sense of place…Meadows’ dialogue conveys the ugliness of Nazi racism, the speech patterns of cinema idols, and non-famous characters made recognizable throughout the story, all leading to a satisfying conclusion.”
—
AudioFile