Paul Yoon's novel 'Etna' is told from a dog's point of view, thanks to Oscar

About this episode

There’s a before and an after to Paul Yoon’s writing life, and at the center is Oscar — a floppy, gentle, food-loving, 70-pound yellow Lab. Yoon didn’t grow up with dogs, so it was really his wife — fellow writer Laura van den Berg — who insisted on the addition. She might have known what would happen to their buttoned-up writing life when a puppy entered it. Paul didn’t. But he quickly fell in love with this disruptive and magical creature. It gave him a new way of looking at the world. His sixth novel is the result of that transformation. “ Etna ” is about a combat dog searching for home after war ravages his unnamed country — and the whole story is told from the dog’s point of view. It’s…