Dog Walks Man is a memoir about the plain and metaphysical joys of a simple daily duty shared by tens of millions. It could be titled Zen and the Art of Dog Walking, or, to turn it around, Art and the Zen of Dog Walking, since Zeaman is an art critic and what he sees on walks is often informed by the landscape paintings that he loves.

Humorous, thought-provoking, and playful, Dog Walks Man takes you on a journey from a round-the-block fraternity of “dog-walking dupes”—suburban fathers who indulged their children’s wish for a dog—to a strange and forbidden wilderness at the edge of town, the New Jersey Meadowlands. Along the way, he rediscovers childhood’s forgotten “fringe places,” investigates the mysteries of the natural world, and experiences moments of inexplicable joy at the sight of his dog running across an open meadow.

Woven into the narrative are musings on such familiar dog-walking issues as the war of nerves that precedes each walk (or “w-a-l-k” if your dog is in earshot), the problem of dog-walking monotony, and why dog walkers are always the ones to discover dead bodies. This is also the story of Pete, a prescient standard poodle (like Steinbeck’s Charley) who begins the story in the role of the “family glue” and evolves into Zeaman’s partner on a trip through an abandoned landscape as alive as any jungle.

Above all, Dog Walks Man is about a search for wholeness in an increasingly artificial world. It is about discovering what Thoreau meant when he wrote, in his seminal essay Walking, “Life consists with wildness.” Because the truth is, something as simple as walking the dog can open up unexpected worlds. (See the Town and Wild Fringe maps by Claire Zeaman.)