The Art of Racing in the Rain

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

The book opens with a first-person narrator who expresses frustration with his inability to communicate. The narrator is a dog named Enzo. Enzo is feeling his age, and looks forward to his looming death and reincarnation as a human. Enzo’s master, Denny, is an auto mechanic and race car driver. Enzo respects Denny for having the human qualities that he lacks: the ability to communicate and the capacity to make things happen. He feels like a liability in Denny’s otherwise perfect existence.

Denny comes home to find that Enzo had an accident on the kitchen floor and gives him a bath. Together they watch tapes of old car races. Denny calls his co-worker, Mike, and asks for coverage on the next day’s shift so he can take Enzo to the vet.

Enzo understands that it might be a one-way trip, but indicates that he’s ready to go.

Chapter 2 Summary

Enzo recalls his days as a puppy on the farm in Spangle and the day he met Denny. Enzo’s mother was indifferent to him, but his possible-father was a ragged, fighting terrier. Though Enzo doesn’t dwell on his heritage, he likes the idea of coming from terrier stock. He recalls the farm largely with cynicism. It was hot and he was always thirsty.

Chapter 3 Summary

Denny gives Enzo tips on racing cars while they study videos together. In particular, he gives Enzo advice on driving in the rain: “Very gently. Like there are eggshells on your pedals, and you don’t want to break them. That’s how you drive in the rain” (13).

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The book is told through the first-person narration of Enzo the dog. However, Enzo is not a normal dog and remarks how he’s always felt “almost human” (13). Just as Enzo feels like a human, Denny treats him like one. He balks at admitting over the phone that Enzo could get put to sleep during their veterinary visit—as if cautious that the dog could understand English. Stein’s decision to anthropomorphize Enzo and tell the story through his eyes demonstrates the depth of their relationship and Denny’s regard for Enzo’s intelligence.

The first three chapters also introduces us to Denny, Enzo’s owner and a race car driver. Denny talks to Enzo about racing as though they are two friends watching videos together and swapping tips, not the type of conversations one would expect between an owner and his dog. Much of the racing advice that Denny offers Enzo informs the rest of the book, down to the mode of its narration. Enzo reflects that drivers have no memory. They disengage themselves from the present. His somewhat disjointed manner of presenting the book reflects that lack of continuity, as many chapters don’t follow each other in a temporal sense.

Enzo’s wish to die is also established in the beginning of the book. Enzo wants to finish his life as a dog in order to be reincarnated as a human. He expresses frustration at his inability to speak and the fact that he has to rely on gestures in order to communicate. By presenting Enzo as the narrator, Stein is giving him a voice that is otherwise unheard by other characters in the book.