What is the name of the book about aliens coming to earth and taking people’s pets so that there were many postings of lost dog signs? Other very strange things, electrical, are happening which causes the main character to search for their source. This same author wrote a story about a man who left his family and went to work in the city as a blind man selling pencils on the street corner.
Would potentially this be one of the Marvin Redpost series by Louis Sachar?
These are both stories in the Stephen King collection Hearts in Atlantis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_in_Atlantis#.22Hearts_in_Atlantis.22