Marianne Leone, actress, writer and advocate for disabled children, is the author of Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy (Sep. 2024)— a tribute to the rescue dogs who helped her and husband Chris Cooper rediscover happiness after the tragic loss of their son Jesse, who died in 2005 at age 17 from complications of cerebral palsy.

 

An actress in many films, including The Thin Blue Line (1988), True Love (1989), Goodfellas (1990), The Three Stooges (2012), and Joy (2015). Leone is best-known for her recurring role as the mother of Christopher Moltisanti in the hit series The Sopranos.

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Her essays have appeared in the collection Fury: Women's Lived Experiences During the Trump Era as well as the Boston Globe, Lit Hub, Ploughshares, Post Road, Bark Magazine, Coastal Living, Solstice, and elsewhere. She is the author of two memoirs, Jesse: A Mother's Story (2011) and Ma Speaks Up: And a First-Generation Daughter Talks Back (2017). 

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Chris Cooper earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as backwoods “orchid poacher” John Laroche in the 2002 film, Adaptation, based on The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.

 

Cooper collaborates frequently with celebrated filmmaker and Schenectady native John Sayles, appearing in Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Lone Star (1996), Silver City (2004) and Amigo (2010). Other credits include American Beauty (1999), Seabiscuit (2003), Capote (2005), Syriana (2005), The Kingdom (2007), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), and Little Women (2019). On TV, he starred as Sheriff July Johnson in the widely acclaimed 1989 miniseries, Lonesome Dove.

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About Five-Dog Epiphany: How a Quintet of Badass Bichons Retrieved Our Joy

Marianne Leone writes about the joy that can be summoned after a great loss, "when you look into the eyes of another damaged creature and know that your happiness is a mirror and an echo and a prayer, and that the little soul reflecting all that energy is happy too, at last."

 

This memoir is a moving and sometimes surprisingly funny exploration of grief and the mutual healing that can occur between rescue dogs and people who have experienced a soul-crushing loss. Leone and her husband, actor Chris Cooper, lost their only child suddenly in 2005. Jesse was seventeen, a straight-A student, and a brilliant poet, who was also quadriplegic and nonverbal except with the assistance of a computer.

 

When six-year-old Jesse miraculously blurted "dog" to Santa, Goody appeared on his bed on Christmas morning. Goody was followed by Lucky, Frenchy, Titi, and Sugar, all rescues adopted after Jesse’s passing. After Jesse’s death, Leone grew a tumor the size of her premature son at birth, her husband disappeared into dark acting roles (Breach, Married Life), and Leone fainted during the filming of a scene in The Sopranos where she is standing in front of her television son’s coffin.

 

This is the story of a bereaved couple and a pack of rescue dogs finding their way to a new life, everyone licking their wounds, both corporal and spiritual, and the rediscovery of joy.