The Lady with the Dog

A work of rare emotional clarity and grace, The Lady with the Dog confirms Carrie Tiffany as one of Australia's most important and fearless literary voices.

The Lady with the Dog is a personal, poetic work loosely based on Carrie Tiffany’s mother’s and stepfather’s final months. It centres on a woman living with Alzheimer’s, deeply attached to the dog she’s recently adopted with her devoted but unwell husband. As the woman’s condition worsens, the dog becomes both companion and symbol, anchoring her to the world. The novella transforms real events experienced by Tiffany’s family during Western Australia’s extended COVID lockdown into a resonant imaginative narrative of memory, love and loss.

A homage to the exquisite sadness of Chekhov’s short story of the same name, The Lady with the Dog, with whimsical illustrations from Noel McKenna, is an imaginative biography of a mother’s last months and a meditation on the role of animals in language and life.