Called a "publishing phenomenon" by the L.A. Times, The Art of Racing in the Rain is the award-winning third novel by American author, filmmaker, and amateur car-racer Garth Stein. Published by HarperCollins in 2008, the novel remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for over 156 weeks. Universal Pictures acquired the production rights for a film adaptation in 2009, with plans for Patrick Dempsey to star. Ultimately, Disney Studios bought the rights and turned the novel into a major motion picture starring Milo Ventimiglia, Kevin Costner, and Amanda Seyfriend.
The Art of Racing in the Rain was inspired by the 1998 Mongolian documentary State of Dogs and Billy Collins's poem "The Revenant," which, like Stein's novel, was written from a dog's point of view. Stein was also inspired by his own experiences with car racing as well as the life of a close friend who was having family troubles at the time of the novel's composition.
The dog, Enzo, is named after Enzo Ferrari, founder of the car manufacturer of the same name.
In one Dallas-area school district, the novel was banned due to a controversial scene where an underage girl "tries to force herself on the main character and later accuses him of rape."
Before the novel was published, Stein brought the finished manuscript to his then-agent, who refused to try to sell the book to a publisher because it is narrated by a dog; so Stein sought a new agent and is now represented by Folio Literary Management, who happily took him on as a client.
The Art of Racing in the Rain received several awards, including Seattle Times Best Book of the Year, Sunday Oregonian Top-Ten Northwest Book of the Year, Pacific Northwest Book Award, Publishers Weekly Listen Up! Award Winner for Fiction, AudioFile Magazine Best Fiction Book of the Year, and Hudson Bookseller's Best Book of the Year.
