Lauren Grodstein's A Dog in Georgia Explores Loss and Longing in Tbilisi

Lauren Grodstein's latest novel, A Dog in Georgia, follows Amy Webb as she travels to Tbilisi in search of a missing stray named Angel. The story unfolds against a backdrop of personal upheaval, with Amy's marriage, career, and sense of self all unravelling. Amy arrives in Tbilisi at a moment of deep uncertainty. Her life, once marked by competence, now feels unmoored, and the search for Angel becomes a way to step outside her own struggles. The city itself is rendered vividly—a place of contradictions, where memory and exhaustion coexist with warmth and resilience.

The novel avoids turning Angel into a symbol. Instead, he remains a quiet presence, his disappearance opening Amy's eyes to the overlooked: stray dogs, fleeting connections, and desires that defy neat explanations. Around her, Georgian women act as living archives, offering food, judgement, and stories that weave through the narrative. As winter settles over the city, Amy begins to relearn hunger—not just for food, but for engagement with the world. Cooking and sharing meals become acts of reclaiming herself, though the novel resists framing this as a tidy transformation. By the end, she hasn't 'found herself' but has started to recognise her own appetites again. *A Dog in Georgia* lingers on survival as something communal, something practiced in kitchens and on street corners. The book's reflective tone suits its themes, offering warmth without easy resolutions.

The novel closes with Amy in a city that understands endurance as a shared effort. Her journey doesn't resolve with grand revelations but with small, tangible moments of reconnection. For readers questioning the demands of care and self-sacrifice, the story leaves room to consider what it means to exist—simply, hungrily—in the world.