We Think the World of You, Paperback/J. R. Ackerley

We Think the World of You combines acute social realism and dark fantasy, and was described by J.R. Ackerley as "a fairy tale for adults." Frank, the narrator, is a middle-aged civil servant, intelligent, acerbic, self-righteous, angry. He is in love with Johnny, a young, married, working-class man with a sweetly easygoing nature. When Johnny is sent to prison for committing a petty theft, Frank gets caught up in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents for access to him. Their struggle finds a strange focus in Johnny's dog--a beautiful but neglected German shepherd named Evie. And it is she, in the end, who becomes the improbable and undeniable guardian of Frank's inner world. About author(s): J.R. Ackerley (1896-1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener . His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip , and My Father and Myself , and a novel, We Think the World of You (all available as New York Review Books). P.N. Furbank is the author of nine books, including biographies of Samuel Butler, Italo Svevo, and E.M. Forster.