Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

The Dog Fighter

A Novel

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The anonymous narrator of this remarkable debut novel is a young drifter in search of his future. The son of a passionate beauty and gentle doctor, he roams the border between the United States and Mexico, eventually settling in a sleepy Baja town on the verge of transformation. Here he learns to stand face-to-face with dogs in a makeshift ring, to fight for money and fame, and becomes involved with a powerful and corrupt entrepreneur. But when he finds friendship with a revolutionary old poet and love with a beautiful, innocent girl, everything changes. Caught between the ways of his past and the dreams of his future, he must make a devastating choice that could cost him everything.

The Dog Fighter is an exhilarating tale of brutality and violence, love and wisdom, heartbreak and redemption.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 26, 2004
      Twenty-seven-year-old Bojanowski takes a hard look at death and devotion in 1940s Mexico in this provocative debut. Narrated in a confident, macho-mythic voice ("The dead mens skins had paled some in the moonlight. But more from the dark slits in their throats. Like when a fish is brought from water") by an unnamed young man, the story follows his quest to find—and prove—himself. Raised on the stories of fierce men his grandfather told him, the narrator grows up cruel and strong, unmindful of his mother and disgusted by his sensitive father. He goes to California, kills a man and is sent back to Mexico, where he finds work in Canción, a small Baja city controlled by a corrupt businessman named Cantana. At first a worker on a Cantana construction project, the narrator falls under the spell of the dog fights, in which men, wearing a glove fitted with knives, battle dogs to the death. What begins as a search for fame and respect offers a chance to warm the narrator's heart: Cantana's stunning mistress, glimpsed in the midst of a gruesome dog fight ("Hot from the fighting and angry that I could not find her in the crowd of ugly faces I kicked the dog in the soft of its stomach"). Animal lovers and tenderhearted readers, beware. But the narrator forms a friendship with a sentimental poet, pines for the woman and tries to develop a conscience in a world that seems to have none. Eventually, of course, he must do battle with Cantana himself. Bojanowski is adept at charting the anxieties of a small city on the brink of expansion and the darkness of men's hearts. Agent, Zoe Pagnamenta
      .

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading