No one does singular obsession quite like Orlean. I make it a point to read her books and New Yorker articles and damn near anything else she writes. It's quite a trick to take an individual's tunnel-visioned approach to one aspect of life and find universality in it while strategically inserting oneself into the narrarative to further expound on that universality. Orlean always does it.

I'm not a Rin Tin Tin fan and think of him as relegated to merchadise in a sad flea market. Sentimentality was something my brothers and I were taught to distrust; it usually masked an unwillingness to look things squarely in the face and call them what they were (usually sexist, racist or some other -ist). So while my dad tried to engage us in "Francis the Talking Mule" on weekends, my mom pointed out that the restaurant we loved glorifying the 1950s actually did not allow blacks in it in the real 1950s. My mom's influence was stronger and while we watched "The Lone Ranger" with my swooning father, we viewed it with critical eyes. We never watched Rin Tin Tin on television although we were old enough when it ran on Saturday syndicate. So I brought no fondness for a dog I most strongly associate with being on a dusty lunchbox in a junk stall to reading this.

That said, I found myself looking at Rin Tin Tin websites after finishing the book (do it; they seem quite creepy). I wondered if new audiences would welcome Rin Tin Tin with his simple morality and loyalty and no B-list celebrities providing his voice. I don't know if they would, but that does not matter. All that matters is that someone still cares enough about him to keep his faded legacy alive.