How I tamed the black dog: Damian Dibben on his new book Tomorrow

'What saves you? In my case, it was dogs.' 
Matt Writtle
Damian Dibben8 October 2018

My novel, Tomorrow, is an epic tale of love, of courage, of hope — and of dogs. The bond between human and canine is one of the purest and most unique on Earth, but in this story it’s greater than ever. I have been on a similarly life-changing journey. I have fought anxiety, depression, even suicidal urges and have come out the other side. I have as good as fixed myself.

I always had a mind that was too full of things, a little too prone to end up on the dark side. I grew up London, right in the centre and had a family to match: colourful, eccentric and a little bit crazy — great material for stories. The downside was a continual sense of unease, that something bad was about to happen.

This was compounded when I was a teenager and lost my father, all my grandparents and others in quick succession. Funerals became a monthly occurrence and death seemed to be the page heading for life. In my twenties I was dogged by severe episodes of OCD (endlessly repeating rituals; self-harming mentally and physically). I had every therapy, from counselling to full-on, five-times-a-week Jungian psychoanalysis.

Then came an incident that I could not tame. In brief, after a long-held desire to have children, I ended the dream. The fact it was my decision made it worse, not better. I can only describe it as feeling as though I’d actually killed a child — and, inexplicably, my own childhood. Every fear and uncertainty I’d ever experienced rushed back at once and I tipped from anxiety into depression.

The realm of depression is almost impossible to describe. It’s a place like no other, where you’re trapped in darkness. It is inhuman and unmerciful. When depressed people talk of suicide, it doesn’t mean they’re not frightened of death but the opposite, they’re terrified of it, yet still it is better than the alternative of “the endless black ahead”.

What saves you? In my case, it was dogs. My family always had them. I have pictures of me in Kensington Gardens, being nannied by two bassets. Dogs were the opposite of the problems I’d been devising since infancy: they’re constant and unwavering. They’ll no more give up their devotion than a planet would alter its course. Their love is simple and immense, they’ll wait by your grave given the chance.

I stared one day into the eyes of Dudley, my earnest, philosophical Jack Russell, and a story came to me: of a dog that doesn’t die, of the wonders he’d see and also the horrors. Tomorrow, the dog who narrates the novel, lost his master more than a hundred years ago and has been searching for him ever since, scouring the courts and battlefields of Europe. Everything Tomorrow gets close to passes away but he forces himself on. Without realising, putting together the story became the best therapy I had ever had.

As I carried on with the work, my partner and I adopted two more dogs, rescues from Cyprus (through the amazing Wild at Heart Foundation). These were a cheerfully bossy demi-basset called Daphne and her best friend Velvet, an eccentric, shy Labrador cross. When they’d been discovered, locked up in an abandoned pound, they had refused to leave one another. They arrived exhausted and frightened, because they’d never known a home.

At first, it was like a bomb had gone off in our midst and I wondered what we’d done. But it turned out to be the final and most unexpectedly satisfying chapter of my great recovery. Bit by bit they settled in. I took them to my favourite places: to lunch in Soho, tasting at Borough Market, up the stairs of the Monument, present buying in Liberty (yes, dogs welcome) and, of course, to Kensington Gardens, where my dreaming began. They are brave, keen to learn and unfailingly kind. Through their eyes I saw London anew – and my novel began to fly.

I won’t tell you what happens at the end of the story but it’s no secret that I’m a changed person since finishing it. It turns out I had the tools to help me get better all along: for me, they were imagination and dogs; dogs — those extraordinary souls that will accompany us on any adventure, and who will be there to the very end.

Tomorrow, published by Michael Joseph/Penguin is available in hardback.

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