Customer Reviews

Dog Bites Man: City Shocked: A Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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~]

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".

A satire that works. Outrageous and worthy of Evelyn Waugh. No kidding!