Dog Fighter, The: A Novel [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Marc Bojanowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2005

Told through the searing voice of its unnamed narrator, THE DOG FIGHTER is the story of a young man drifting through the badlands of California and Mexico following the death of his mother. After landing in a remote city in Baja, the protagonist is lured into an exclusive society where men stand face to face with dogs in a makeshift ring to fight them for money and fame. With an uncommon display of strength, skill and fearlessness, he gains notoriety overnight. When he falls in love with the beautiful mistress of the town's most feared businessmen, he ignites a dangerous combination of jealousy, greed, lust and betrayal that culminates in a fight not only for his life but for the future of the city. Written in a voice that is at once haunting, lyrical and immensely powerful, The Dog Fighter heralds the arrival of a brilliant young writer.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

First-novelist Bojanowski tells a nihilistic, extremely violent story about a nameless, physically powerful Mexican who becomes a dog fighter. With his forearm wrapped in a heavy rug and his hand covered in a glove attached to a claw, he enters into mortal combat with vicious dogs. They fight in a ring surrounded by an audience of bloodthirsty men who are accompanied by their mistresses and bet on the outcome. The action is controlled by the powerful businessman Cantana, whose other interests include a hotel currently under construction, which has been firebombed by young protestors angry over Cantana's corrupt and violent business practices. The dog fighter is hopelessly in love with Cantana's mistress and is soon drawn into an ill-conceived political scheme. Told in a kind of formal if slightly fractured English, the story is rife with machismo and ominous overtones. But the narrator proves more interesting as a concept than as a character, which makes the reading much less compelling than initially promised. A flawed but distinctive debut from a writer to watch. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• ISBN-10: 0060597585
• ASIN: B000H2N1B6
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,659,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brutal glimpse into a dark soul, June 17, 2004

By 

I. Gardener (england) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dog Fighter: A Novel (Hardcover)

I am not a huge reader of fiction, and when I do I tend towards less violent fare, but I picked up this book, meaning to read a chapter before bed, and ended up staying up all night to finish it. The unnamed protagonist is both brutal and brutalised by his circumstances and the expecations of the codes of masculinity in which he is brought up, especally by his grandfather.
I will not discuss the narrative further, as I leave the discovery of its many great qualities to the reader, I will mention the issue of the violence within the story, the book is not for everyone; but I truly believe that unlike so much of modern culture, the violence is an integral part of the milleu that the dog fighter inhabits.
In short, the book succeeds both as an evocation of a time both specific and universal, whilst also llustating the dangers of a particular type of masculinity. This first effort by the author makes me hungry for his next work. In short a fine book by a promising artist.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good story, too much affectation, January 21, 2005

By 

A Reader (Boulder) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dog Fighter: A Novel (Hardcover)

The energy in Marc Bojanowski's writing is exciting. Though the first scene of the book (and countless scenes thereafter) are gruesome--and though this would normally turn me off--I kept reading because of Mr. Bojanowski's strong voice. The initial energy, however, fizzled as I read. What seemed like genuine innovation at the outset became self-conscious affectation midway through. It's not that Bojanowski leaves out punctuation (commas, apostrophes, etc.) that bothers me. It's that he uses a period INSTEAD of a comma. My complaint? If you're going to put a mark of punctuation there, use the right one. IF you're going to innovate and delete common punctuation, then DELETE it. Let the rhythm of your language carry the voice. Exchanging one mark of punctuation for another is artifice, not art. Likewise with his deletion of apostrophes. Apostrophes have nothing to do with voice. They only have to do with clarity. Deleting them comes off as a trick, rather than something necessary to the story.

I can only attribute this self-consciousness to Mr. Bojanowski's youth. However, I am also impressed by the very same thing. To write a novel this strong at this age shows so much promise for the future. It's staggering. (More staggering, say, than any other "Heartbreaking work of Genius" out there.) I can't wait to see what Bojanowski writes next--and I hope some of the self-consciousness of The Dog Fighter wanes and his great sense of language and image and story prevail.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Writing Style Reminiscent of Hemingway, January 4, 2005

By 

FictionAddiction.NET - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dog Fighter: A Novel (Hardcover)

Marc Bojanowski's debut novel is a story that finds power and beauty of life in the masculine brutality of Mexican dog fighting. If there is one word to describe this book, it is passion.

Three major themes intertwine through The Dog Fighter. First is the theme of dog fighting, of the contrived struggle between man and beast that reflects the very soul of the protagonist. Second is the theme of unrequited love, as seen through the protagonist's unquenchable desire for a woman he can never have. The third theme is that of war, of the constant revolution that engulfs the town of Canciòn.

It is during his first fight with a dog that the protagonist lays eyes on his love. This instant awareness of his love distracts him from the fight, minimizing the danger of the dog and emphasizing the danger of his heart. This is because the woman he falls in love with is the mistress of the Cantana, the brutal and corrupt businessman turning Canciòn from a quiet fishing village into a tourist resort for Americans.

It is against these businessmen that the people of Canciòn revolt. These people want their fishing village to remain the way it always has been. They sabotage equipment and delay construction of the hotel which symbolizes the radical changes that this fishing village faces. The protagonist is drawn into this struggle. In the end, he must choose which side of the revolution he will support.

There are no easy paths for the Dog Fighter.

From the first whisperings of the Dog Fighter's grandfather to the final song sung by the Dog Fighter's love, this tale is absolutely engrossing.