Praise for I Thought You Were Dead
“Chosen by independent booksellers as a recent No. 1 Book Sense Pick, I Thought You Were Dead, a novel about the bonds between dogs and humans, is heartfelt and nostalgic in tone … Stella’s wisdom sets the luckless Paul on a brighter life path. It’s her nobility … that gives the story its power.”
—USA Today
“[I Thought You Were Dead] has a low-key, indie-movie vibe, with Stella sounding like Juno’s older, world-weary aunt.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“With an irresistible voice, a completely relatable hero, and a dog named Stella who will steal your heart away, Pete Nelson has crafted a cunning and completely winning novel in I Thought You Were Dead. Read it, and you will fall in love.”
—Susan Cheever, author of American Bloomsbury
“In the guise of a novel, Pete Nelson has spun a beautiful ballad out of the humblest elements: an old dog, a drinking problem, a Minnesota family and a woman torn between two lovers. Not at all coincidentally, he’s also written a truly outstanding talking-dog story … With exquisite tone control, he has given us a story that’s sweet and loving but never sentimental.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Stella the dog is always charming. And there’s a dignity and gravity to Paul’s affection for her … Their friendship [is] one of the best ever put down on paper.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Hilarious and heartbreaking, Pete Nelson’s I Thought You Were Dead will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page—a brilliantly funny, highly original, and heartfelt novel about a man who needs all the help (i.e., love) he can get and who finds it in delightfully unexpected places.”
—Mary Helen Stefaniak,
author of The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia
“‘I thought you were dead,’ Stella says to Paul when he returns home from a bar, on page one of Pete Nelson’s new novel. Delivered by an aging, arthritic Labrador/Shepherd mix, the line displays the dry wit and dog logic that makes Stella and, by extension, much of this novel a delight … Yes, Stella talks. And the conversations are so charming and matter-of-fact that it hardly seems worth asking from whence this special power comes.”
— Bark magazine
“Pete Nelson has crafted a sweet, charming story about a man, his dog and the people in his life … A walk with Gustavson and Stella is a journey not soon forgotten.”
—The Charleston Post and Courier
“If you think your dog is not only the best listener in your life, but you can actually hear its sage advice in your head, you should read Pete Nelson’s I Thought You Were Dead …Nelson describes the friendship between man and dog with a lot of heart and understanding.”
—The Oregonian
“Airy and almost miraculous … It’s very wise about the way devotion—between animals and people, between people and people—can keep us going.”
—The Palm Beach Post
“Nelson delivers readable prose and a flawed, likable character who is easy to root for. The author does a good job portraying the complexities of adult relationships without artifice.”
—The Cedar Rapids Gazette
“A sweet little novel … about relationships … Stella has a wry voice that might, just might, also be the voice of Paul’s inner better angel. And if dogs could talk, they probably would talk like Stella—kindly, sensibly, usually about food … Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Ultimately, I Thought You Were Dead is about the catastrophes that make a person realize his life is a mess, then do everything he can to put his life back together—perhaps, in the process, creating something better than he dared to hope for.”
—BookPage
“In this age of extended adolescence, here’s a coming-of-age novel about a middle-aged man who’s had no luck at much of anything, especially love. The fact that Pete Nelson can tell such a story without making the narrator’s charming talking dog seem unusual is proof of his power as a writer. This book will make you laugh, cry, and want a dog you can really talk to.”