My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--the World's Most Grueling Race [Paperback]

Brian Patrick O'Donoghue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 1996

   The Iditarod may be the only race that awards a prize for last place.  But then how many people can even complete a course that ranges across 1,000 miles of Alaska's ice fields, mountains, and canyons at temperatures that sometimes plunges to 100 degrees below zero?  In conditions like these, anything can go wrong.  For Brian Patrick O'Donoghue, nearly everything did. 

  In My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian, his reporter and intrepid novice musher tells what happened when he entered the 1991 Iditarod, along with seventeen sled dogs with names like Harley, Screech, and Rainy, his sexually confused lead dog. O'Donoghue braved snowstorms and sickening wipeouts, endured the contempt of more experienced racers (one of whom was daft enough to use poodles), and rode herd of four-legged companions who would rather be fighting or having sex.  It's all here, narrated with self-deprecating wit, in a true story of heroism, cussedness and astonishing dumb luck.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mushing is an odd sport for anybody. First you take a dozen-plus slightly tamed dogs ("damned wolves with collars," one rancher calls them), strap them to a sled that, with little enough provocation, will send you rocketing into the tundra and start out for the 1000-mile race accompanied by chunks of frozen liver and the occasional whole reporter?this after forking over $1249. O'Donoghue, who moved to Alaska from the lower 48 to work for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, decided to start mushing after just two winters. He soon entered Iditarod XIX while writing a column for the paper titled "Off to the Races." Perhaps because his own mishaps (shredded doggie booties, sled falls, lack of sleep, poor visibility, missed shelters, tangled, bruised, grouchy and, as the title implies, polymorphously perverse, dogs) don't really change over the course of the race (they just accumulate), O'Donoghue introduces a large cast of other mushers. These do bring new misadventures, but the account can be a little confusing. O'Donoghue's style is amusing but rarely laugh-out-loud. Instead, what really keeps this book going is the same thing that keeps the racers going, a kind of bloody-minded doggedness that thinks, when faced with frostbitten fingers, not about the possibility of amputation but the possibility of scratching.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

O'Donoghue tells what happened when he entered the 1991 Iditarod, along with 17 sled dogs with names like Rainy, Harley and Screech. O'Donoghue braved snowstorms, sickening wipeouts, and endured the contempt of more experienced racers. Narrated with icy elan and self deprecating wit, this is a true story of heroism, cussedness, and astonishing dumb luck.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 19, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679764119
• ISBN-13: 978-0679764113
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Outdoor Recreation > Iditarod & Dog-Sledding

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian, February 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--the World's Most Grueling Race (Paperback)

I bought this book on the way to the airport for a flight to Helsinki. I wanted a book on mushing but and this was the only book the store had in so I grabbed it not convinced I was going to like it. Once I opened it I couldn't put it down. This has to be one of the greatest books I've ever read. This is a guy who can really keep a captive audience with his stories. And funny!!! I laughed almost all the way across the ocean. I'm a musher who wants to run the Iditarod and have gone through one when my boyfriend ran it and thought that's why I appreciated his humor so much but while I was in Helsinki my housemate who HATES dogs period and has ZERO intrest in mushing was laughing really hard one evening. I peeked into the livingroom to see what was so funny and there she was reading this book. I must have loaned it to a hundred people so far and everyone of them loved it! I reccomend this book to everyone!!! Even cat lovers! PS - we even "borrowed" one of his dog's names for one of ours!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a lot safer than taking on the iditarod yourself, April 21, 2002

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--the World's Most Grueling Race (Paperback)

This is far from the best-written non-fiction book I have ever read. The journalist's experience writing in the shorter form of articles shows through in the disjointed feel of much of the narrative. This is still well worth the read if you have any interest in Alaska, mushing, or man's working relationship with dogs. Even without those interests you may well find the book enjoyable.
At the beginning I was first overcome by the romantic notion of this amazing race, and reading through his preparations deluded myself with the fantasy of doing such a thing myself (a real joke considering how much I dislike even camping). Once the race gets underway, my most common thought was "these people are ...insane!" It was terrific and I really wanted to know how it would turn out for each and every one of them.
The title can provide for some fun too. The other day I overheard from another room Child A ask, "What is a lesbian?" Child B responded, "It is a type of dog." After much laughter I had to call them in and correct it, although I had fun imagining the kind of conversation this could cause in public at one point if they were both left with their misconception.
Since you are on this page, and reading these reviews, you are probably interested enough in the subject that reading this book would be a positive experience for you.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mush On!, February 18, 2000

By 

John Kleber (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--the World's Most Grueling Race (Paperback)

Last January I drove a twelve dog sled along the Iditarod Trail outside Nome. I had not gone far when I was thrown from the runners whilst overturning the sled. That one event gave me a new appreciation for anyone who can not just mush, but run and complete the Iditarod. This is one fantastic book, well written, and suspensful. Since most of us will never do the race, it is the next best thing to pick up on a cold winter's night and dream of glory or humiliation. I know how the author did in the race, but I won't reveal the ending. Take it from someone who drove the Iditarod for three feet, you will love this book with the strange name.