Her most recent book is Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, about the beloved German shepherd of the silent-film era who had a personal story as dramatic as the movies in which he starred. Orlean ...

The front cover of Susan Orlean's remarkable "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend" shows a German shepherd dog - possibly Rin Tin Tin himself - looking away from the camera. It is at once notable for ...

Susan Orlean's new book about a particular sliver of Americana is no biography of the most famous German shepherd in history. It's not even the life story of Lee Duncan, a fatherless California kid ...

First lines are particularly important to Susan Orlean, which makes it that much tougher to start an article about someone who has written about almost everything herself. The New Yorker author’s most ...

A staff writer for “The New Yorker” magazine since 1992, Susan Orlean is the author of many excellent books including “The Orchid Thief,” which was made into the award-winning film “Adaptation.” It ...

RIN TIN TIN: The Life and the Legend, by Susan Orlean. Simon & Schuster, 324 pp, $26.99. Stop that scoffing. Yes, Susan Orlean spent nearly a decade of her life researching and writing a book about a ...

Born on a battlefield in France during World War I and rescued by a U.S. soldier named Lee Duncan, a terrified German shepherd puppy would become the most famous dog in the world. Named Rin Tin Tin, ...

He believed the dog was immortal. "There will always be a Rin Tin Tin," Lee Duncan said, time and time again, to reporters, to visitors, to fan magazines, to neighbors, to family, to friends. At first ...

First, for the benefit of the younger set, we should explain a bit about the real Rin Tin Tin. He was a German shepherd who was rescued from a World War I battlefield by an American soldier, Lee ...

They called him the Dog Wonder, the Mastermind Dog, America’s Greatest Movie Dog. He was listed in the Los Angeles phone book, made more money than his human costars and actually came unnervingly ...