Ever By My Side

Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight [Acts] Pets

By: Dr. Nick Trout / Narrated By: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Often funny, always sweet, and Simon Vance narrates! ‘Nuff said…!

Seriously, if Simon Vance narrates something, I am so totally THERE! The man brings warmth, humor, grace to ANYthing he does. He always turns in a profoundly fine performance that adds to whatever words happen to be written, and what can I say? Even subpar audiobooks turn out to be wonders.

So let’s get down to this memoir by Dr. Nicholas Trout. It starts with him as a very little boy, afraid to sit next to his grandmother’s crotchety sausage-scarfing dog, follows him through adolescence, goes through young adulthood then ends with him as a father with a family and dogs of his own. It chronicles every dog (and a cat!) who’ve touched his life and honors them in a wonderful way.

Life is not always easy for Trout, and life throws him some pretty serious curveballs, especially when he becomes a father of a daughter with cystic fibrosis. That’s probably the most touching part of the book because he learns to live with her illness through his interaction with animals and their owners. As a veterinarian, he runs into all types of people, but the one who touches him is the one who believes in living each day with hope, never bewailing fate, always loving as much as one can in any given moment.

Ever By My Side has been compared to the works of James Herriot, but as a reviewer scowled on Audible: He ain’t no James Herriot. Actually, when you listen to the book, you’ll find that this is quite funny as Trout goes to great pains NOT to be Herriot (even though his own father desperately longs for him to be so—doing as much as retiring in Herriot country and adopting a thick local accent). Trout does a stint in the country, but he can’t quite get the hang of the interacting with the rural characters, can’t quite get the hang of dealing with stock, especially since there’s always a bottom line, and that always spells death for an animal who can’t be treated successfully first try. Instead, he becomes a surgeon, one who is always on the lookout to be the life-saving veterinarian his father hopes him to be.

There is death in this book, naturally. But there is so much life in it also. And always, there is Trout’s wry way of looking at things, his sense of humor even in the face of the painful facts of life. I loved each incorrigible dog his father owned, and I loooooooved the cat who came to accept him.

I’d just finished listening to Jon Katz’s woeful Going Home which left me confused and exhausted after seeking it out for solace. What Katz’s book lacked, Ever By My Side has in spades: tenderness, the honor it is to be by the sides of our animal companions as they walk with us through our every phase of life. Trout connects it all so beautifully. Make no mistake—this is no fast-paced listen that’ll leave you reeling from excitement. Rather, it’s a lovely journey through a life well-lived, a life with an open heart for animals. It’s relentlessly heartfelt, sweetly moving. And with Simon Vance at the helm? Well, gosh. It was darned near perfect for my mood!

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