Dogrun - Softcover

Nersesian, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671775421 ISBN 13: 9780671775421

Publisher: MTV Books, 2000

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur Nersesian is an American novelist, playwright, and poet. He has written eight novels including The Fuck-Up, Chinese Takeout, Manhattan Loverboy, Suicide Casanova, Dogrun, and Unlubricated. He lives in New York City. 

Reviews

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.

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

Edition details

• Publisher: MTV Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671775421
• ISBN 13: 9780671775421
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272