Dogrun [Paperback]

Arthur Nersesian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

mary bellanova came home to her east village apartment, cooked dinner, and fought with her boyfriend, primo. but soon mary realized that primo's silence in front of the tv set was more than just one of his bad moods: primo was actually dead.

other guys had abandoned mary before,but primo's exit was by far the most unique. and suddenly mary's life -- defined so far by a string of temp jobs and unfinished short stories -- takes off on a tantalizing adventure as she follows a trail of primo's ex-lovers.

arthur nersesian, who created a howling new york odyssey in his smash hit the fuck-up, captures the spirit of the city itself -- jolting and full of surprise -- in this powerful new novel edged with black humor and poignancy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Mary Bellanova finds her live-in boyfriend, Primo, dead on the couch in her New York City apartment, she is catapulted into a manic quest for the truth about his life in this lightweight, plot-driven, downtown grunge novel. Primo was an enigmatic drifter, author of a pornographic novel and ex-lover of an eclectic collection of girlfriends; it seems he even had a child. Mary's own life is nothing to write home about. She's 29 years old and has been working a succession of temp jobs while making fitful attempts at finishing a collection of short stories. On Primo's trail, she stumbles into a series of new adventures. In search of one of Primo's many ex-girlfriends, she arrives at a band audition and accidentally becomes a bassist in an all-woman band, the Beautiful and the Crazy. Other forays land her dates with a toe-sucking foot fetishizer and a borderline rapist. Finally, she meets a marginally more suitable tattooed hipster while walking Primo's dog, Numb. Meanwhile, she is being wined and dined by Joey, an older man who once lived next door to her parents in New Jersey. As it happens, it is Joey, and not Primo, whose secrets will ultimately matter the most to Mary. As the coincidences mount, Mary tries to make sense of them, ultimately realizing that life is just "a series of battles and treaties." Nersesian (The Fuck-up) knows downtown Manhattan's East Village life better than most, and his characters are instantly recognizable, if somewhat cartoonish. But his tongue-in-cheek humor and uneven prose may limit the novel's readership to the slacker denizens it chronicles.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Following up his cult favorite, The Fuck Up (1999), Nersesian creates another portrait of the artist as a young slacker, this time with a female protagonist. Mary Bellanova, a 29-year-old aspiring writer/temp worker living in Manhattan's East Village, finds her live-in boyfriend dead of natural causes, an event she views, like everything else, with cool, reckless detachment: "Three other boyfriends had left me over the past six years, but Primo was the first to require a stretcher." As Mary contacts Primo's family and former lovers, she discovers a loaded past that propels her toward change: she quits her menial jobs, joins a punk band, finishes a manuscript, and unknowingly meets the father she thought was dead. Written in Mary's voice, the prose is uneven, filled with self-conscious Gen-X witticisms ("I told him the low lights of my xeroxed day"), obscure poetry ("Everyday is dyed its own hair color"), and some intrusive literary references. Still, readers who know the physical and emotional territory will relish Mary's gritty New York and will feel hopeful, in the end, when she finally achieves a blurry sense of self. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: MTV Books; Original edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671775421
• ISBN-13: 978-0671775421
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Nersesian is the author of eight novels, including the best-selling The Fuck-Up (more than 100,000 copies sold), dogrun (MTV/Simon & Schuster), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), Suicide Casanova (Akashic), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Unlubricated

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll laugh -- I promise, December 12, 2003

By 

Janet Bibeau (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogrun (Paperback)

I'm an impatient reader, I'll be the first to admit. Very often when I'm about halfway through with reading a novel, I'll skip to the back to see how it ends, or I'll often glance at the page number on the bottom and wonder, "how many more pages of this do I have to read?" But I loved Nersesian's Dogrun. Truly enjoyed it. I was thoroughly entertained -- and laughed frequently, which rarely happens even when I'm reading a novel.

The setting of the book is New York's East Village during the 1990s. The East Village stands as a kind of archetype "hipster" enclave (famous for its long history of resident artists and writers and burnouts). But what makes Dogrun work is it's sarcastic comic protagonist, Mary Bellanova. She comes home "after a long day of temping" to find her boyfriend, Primo, zonked out again watching TV. She yells at him, makes him supper and only much later realizes he isn't zonked out -- he's dead! A hilarious beginning, which sets the tone for the rest of the book. From there, starts a Citizen Kane-like exploration of who this boyfriend (who she apparently hardly knew) really was. That's the structural device that propels the narrative forward and Nersesian provides many madcap, picaresque adventures along the way, which includes Mary looking up his mother and ex-girlfriends and lovers.

The book, in part, is about Mary the "artist" (the protagonist is a would-be author), whose time may be running out (she 29, about to turn 30 -- signaling the end of her protracted adolescence).

The book is also, in a big way, about bohemia - or in this case the East Village, which represents it. (As much as the protagonist comes to realize that Bohemia is not a place, it's a state of mind -- or should we say a dream?) As in The Losers' Club by Richard Perez (which another reviewer mentioned), we're given a tour of this unique, offbeat place - pre-9-11. "In the East Village, that soiled and unkept fountain of youth, there was no such thing as growing old gracefully," writes Nersesian. The pressure is on for Mary to do something with her life. Working for minimum wage at Kinko's no longer is a responsible option. "When you're young, you have all these chances, and with time you blow them, one after the other," Nersesian writes elsewhere. Since this a book about an artist, it also greatly involves failure and humiliation. (Failure and humiliation being the staple of any artist's life.) Learning to face certain realities and exasperating "market-place" expectations.

But along the way, there's great humor. Pratfall slapstick mixed with goofball sarcasm. I laughed on almost every page. If I have one complaint (or two), it's that the book should've ended a little earlier (page 235, for instance). Also the first half of the book is more carefully written than the last half in which Nersesian undercooks and overstuffs the narrative, dropping in too many characters and whacky mis-adventures -- every party needs to come to an end. But that's a minor complaint. Obviously, I enjoyed the book well enough to write this long review. This funny book get an A grade from me!

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious -- and fun!, September 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Dogrun (Paperback)

Nersesian seems to the master of the madcap Downtown NYC novel. In Dogrun (like in the F**k-up) he's done it again. We follow the trail of a deceased boyfriend whose trail leads us through a tour of the surreal of world of New York City's East Village. Not since The Losers' Club by Richard Perez have I read a more vividly rendered book depicting that whole scene. This novel is a blast! Wacked out and funny! Also recommended: The Losers' Club, the F**k-up, Manhattan Loverboy

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Nersesian Book -- Hands Down!, July 23, 2004

By 

Abbey Smith "Kat" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogrun (Paperback)

I was referred to this novel after reading The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, another short, lively novel that takes place in the East Village. And after reading Dogrun, I must say that I think it's the funniest, most entertaining novel Nersesian has written so far. Better than the F**k-Up (by far), better than Manhattan Loverboy, much, much better than Chinese Take-out, which after a while totally runs out of energy and is actually an effort to read, lacking in that fun, manic energy Nersesian?s early novels have. In Dogrun, we have a sarcastic female protagonist who 'investigates' the secret life of her deceased boyfriend, and in the course of doing so comes to re-examine her own life. Much as in The Losers' Club, we have something of a ground-level view of downtown NYC, both novels have a kind of manic style. I must say I haven't laughed or enjoyed a book as much as I've enjoyed Dogrun. It's totally goofy and freewheeling and fun; and you can relate to the protagonist's fear of turning 30 and her feeling that 'the party may be over.' Anyway, pick up a copy of this fun book!