Dog Bites Man: City Shocked: A Novel [Hardcover]

James Duffy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2001

"Dog Bites Man" is a witty, tongue-in-cheek saga detailing the House-That-Jack-Built downfall of Eldon Hoagland, an innocent Columbia University professor who has become New York City's good-government mayor. The hilarious spiral begins when Hoagland, after an evening of drinking with his old Princeton roommate, staggers out of a Fifth Avenue apartment house, steps on a dog relieving itself alongside the mayor's car, and gets badly bitten. His cop-bodyguards shoot the dog and in the process terrorize Genc Serreqi -- an illegal Albanian stud who walks the dog (in addition to more intimate chores) for Sue Nation Brandberg, a former Native American beauty queen and socialite widow of a billionaire -- and he flees the scene.

The mayor's bodyguards attempt to cover up their involvement in the shooting, but "Scoop" Rice, an eager young reporter for a muckraking Manhattan weekly, investigates and exposes the canine slaying. Then extreme animal activists, aided and abetted by every other interest group with a grievance against the mayor, tie up the city (not to mention air traffic around the world) in a monumental demonstration. Also offering encouragement are the rabid, newly amalgamated daily Post-News and the state's first woman governor, Randilynn "Randy Randy" Foote, who nurses an ancient grudge against the mayor and hastens his political demise.

In "Dog Bites Man, " novelist James Duffy mixes it up in a lively tale of American politics in which rich movers and shakers, politically correct crusaders and scandal-hungry media types conspire to bring down a New York City mayor. All the hazards of American public life are on hilarious display here, in the freshest novel of mannersand most outrageous political satire of the year.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Retired attorney Duffy author of seven Reuben Frost mystery novels under the pseudonym Haughton Murphy delivers a droll spoof of New York (city and state) political and social pretensions. Running against a Republican so disreputable that even Randilynn Foote, the somewhat shaky incumbent Republican governor, withholds her endorsement, Eldon Hoagland, a political science professor at Columbia, is elected mayor of New York City on the Democratic ticket. After a rather credible first year and a half in office, the highly intoxicated mayor departs a boozy reunion at the Fifth Avenue digs of his old Princeton roomie and is attacked and bitten after stepping on the leg of a pit bull urinating at the curb. His bodyguards shoot the animal as the dog's walker a hunky Albanian with an expired green card flees across Fifth Avenue into the bushes of Central Park. With no witnesses, the mayor decides to keep the incident mum. The dog's socially prominent owner, Sue Nation Brandberg, the mid-50-something Native American widow of a philanthropic billionaire, can't report the shooting to the authorities because of her houseboy lover's illegal status. Sue enlists the aid of the sleazy publisher of a British-owned tabloid newspaper to track down the culprits. When the story breaks, animal rights crusaders and the clergy join the fray. His Honor admits the truth, and all hell breaks loose. The governor, who resents Hoagland her former Columbia professor because he once gave her a B-minus, seizes the opportunity for revenge, only to discover that vengeance can be a two-edged sword. This erudite comedy of errors is the equivalent of Damon Runyon in white tie and tails.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In a broad political satire that reflects the tone though not the text of today's tabloid headlines, we are told of the meteoric rise and equally abrupt fall of a political career. Eldon Hoagland, highly regarded Columbia professor of political science, is seduced by the praise of powerful friends to run for mayor of New York. The birth of his candidacy, his successful run, and the first 18 months of his administration all happen in 30 pages--and the rest of the novel focuses on his downfall. Was it deep corruption, drug use, or sexual impropriety that brought him down? No, after indulging in too much scotch at an old friend's apartment, the mayor steps on a dog as he leaves; dog bites mayor, bodyguard shoots dog, and now are sown the seeds of the mayor's downfall. To follow his decline requires the reader to pursue an incredibly tangled and exaggerated send-up of politicians, muckrakers, animal activists, and their ilk, all with enough truth to make us wonder about the world we live in. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743210824
• ISBN-13: 978-0743210829
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,166,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Likeable failure, September 7, 2001

By 

Jeffrey Ellis "bored recluse" (Richardson, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dog Bites Man: City Shocked: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was really rooting for this book. I love political satire and just reading the cover blurb, it sounded as if Duffy's novel might be the new Bonfire of the Vanities. And he does come up with a plot that has a lot of potential. The Mayor of New York is attacked by a pit bull. When his bodyguards kill the dog to protect him, our niave Mayor is thrown into an increasingly ludicrous, painfully plausible political scandal.

So, what happened? Duffy isn't a bad writer. While his prose certainly didn't shine, it didn't put me to sleep either. Unfortunately, like his Mayor, Duffy is simply too nice. Instead of following his satire through, he suddenly pulls back during the last quarter of the book. Suddenly, his characters become achingly noble and start making "profound" statements about the sorry state of modern politics and journalism. One got the feeling that one day, Duffy looked over what he had previously written and suddenly, for lack of a better term, chickened out. He had the courage to start to a true satire but apparently, not the guts to finish one.

3.0 out of 5 stars City Shocked, Reader Unimpressed, April 9, 2005

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Dog Bites Man: City Shocked: A Novel (Hardcover)

Political satire is meant to both poke fun at the establishment and advance ideas or observations about the establishment's weaknesses. Here Duffy achieves these goals reasonably well, and I will admit that the book kept me interested. However there are many writing deficiencies that keep it from being a true success. Duffy does a great job illustrating how ridiculous single-issue political shenanigans can bring down a well-meaning politician, as here a New York mayor is ruined by a domino effect of ridiculous scandal-mongering after his bodyguards shoot a dog. Duffy shows how people claiming to be outraged and purporting to represent society's best interests are actually self-serving hypocrites trying to advance their own politics, with no attempt at compromise or upholding the functioning of the political entity. I'd bet Monica-gate was Duffy's inspiration here.

Unfortunately the book is brought down by poor character development and numerous plot holes. Annoyingly, the first half of the book is almost entirely character descriptions. Whenever a character is introduced, regardless of whether that person will have any impact at all on later developments, Duffy piles on several paragraphs of character traits and fictional biography. But in the end, Duffy only shows that his characters are one-dimensional stereotypes with contrived quirks that don't nearly make them as unique as Duffy surely hoped. The second half of the book is a bit better in the satire department, but Duffy's villains are absolutely ridiculous and impossible to take seriously as political threats, those being a predictable Ann Richards-like governor and a scraggly band of animal liberationists who somehow manage to create far-reaching disruptions. Given modern politics, there are so many better models for political bad guys that Duffy barely looks like he's trying. I liked the basic theme and observational focus of this novel, but weak writing and many loose ends really sap its satirical potential. [~doomsdayer520~]

4.0 out of 5 stars bingo, April 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Dog Bites Man: City Shocked: A Novel (Hardcover)

A terriffic read. More than a parody of NYC post the current mayor, Man Bites Dog is a too plausible tale of fiction which has all the hallmarks of reality about urban politics today and the absence of political leadership mangnified by media run by mental midgets. This is an entertainment in the mode of Graham Greene (but the locale is not Havana but NYC). There is no message other than "wake-up".