Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America [Paperback]

Thomas E. Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2008

Kennedy’s expatriate life in Denmark assures him of fresh, lucid vision on his return trips to the states, especially during his New York sojourns. He can be wry, confused, indignant, comic…but what declares itself most is his openness to the odd, the out-of-the-way, the down-and-out, the tawdry, the fading, the provincial in the midst of the glitz, recalling for us the photos of Weegee (or, in another slice of America, Walker Evans) and the prose of Studs Terkel. This book is a small swig of 100-proof empathy. ALBERT GOLDBARTH In these sculptured essays, Kennedy will win your heart and beguile your mind as he proves once again that everyone has an interesting story to tell. Kennedy's synesthesia allows him to listen with his eyes and give us an artist’s brilliantly-tuned nuance for the harmonious sound of words. Call Riding the Dog a literary guide to the kindness, the paranoia, the civility and incivility of New York City and environs south and southeast. Meet those whose experiences and attitudes are tattooed literally and figuratively on their bodies denoting the difficult, down-to-earth, humanistic (sometimes barely human, occasionally spiritual) lives they've lived. DUFF BRENNA As with Orwell, Dickens, Gellhorn, and many others, Thomas E. Kennedy has pushed the essay form to its brightest moments, in which fact can have its poetry, its narrative, its characters, its emotion, and its intellectual integrity….This is Kennedy’s gift: language not as an instrument of explanation but as reality itself….We read these essays expecting to learn less about how we might think than how we might live.

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: New American Press (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981780210
• ISBN-13: 978-0981780214
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,375,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America through an ex-pat's eyes, November 19, 2008

By 

Michael. Lee (Cape Cod) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America (Paperback)

Author Thomas E. Kennedy turns his considerable talents to the essay form in this remarkable collection. Just as Joyce wrote about Dublin while in self imposed exile, Kennedy turns his eyes back home to America after spending half his life in Copenhagen. What makes this collection priceless is Kennedy's great feel for irony and a self-effacing style that never strikes a false chord. It underscores the notion that perhaps no truer vision exists of a country than that of the expatriate. Hopefully, this book will ignite further interest in this prolific author's works, especially his recent fiction collection, "The Copenhagen Quartet," four novels loosely based on the four seasons in Copenhagen. "Riding the Dog" is the best essay collection of the year.

5.0 out of 5 stars Read Every Word - Twice, March 2, 2011

By 

David W. Berner "DaveWB" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America (Paperback)

Thomas E. Kennedy is a master at fiction, but I simply love these pieces of memoir/creative nonfiction. He does an elegant job of weaving his own stories and recollections with what resonates with all of us - the shared human condition. Read it TWO times, it's even better the second.

4.0 out of 5 stars A look back at a look back, January 14, 2011

By 

Brett Savage - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America (Paperback)

Good essays. My friend recommended that I read this because I like to travel and be away form America. He thinks I will one day be come like Kennedy and write from a similar point of view. I liked the book. I did like his perspective and writing style. The stories are not remarkable or so well written, but something about them was very interesting to me. Each story was enjoyable and in its own way rewarding. Before I read the book I did not know what 'Riding the Dog' referred to.