Novelleanalyse: 'Live like a dog alone'

The novel describes a fifty-four year old business woman named Miriam. Miriam runs a nursing agency where she lectures about stress. She lives alone in a posh neighborhood and her husband has left her for an actress. In the novel she is sitting in a cap on her way home from the hospital. Sometimes Miriam faints, and that’s the reason why, she has been at the hospital.

While sitting in the cap, Miriam starts a conversation with the driver. He is an immigrant from Kosovo. He says, he lives like a dog alone and Miriam tries to cheer him up by putting other animals into the sentence. Meanwhile talking to the driver, Miriam thinks about her own life. When they get to Miriam’s house, she invites him for a cup of coffee and maybe more.

Miriam is a woman who has chosen to focus on her carrier. She runs a nursing agency, which might mean that she has struggled her way to the top. The novel doesn’t describe anything about friends, colleagues or so. It points out that Miriam is a very lonely woman who focuses on her job to get distracted from her private life. Not only is the fact that Miriam often gets to the hospital because she faints a symptom of stress. This quote: “And she had to be at a meeting by ten in the morning. A couple of hours sleep and that would be it” is a description of Miriam’s general lifestyle.