Book Details
| Title: | Buster | |
| Author: | George Pelecanos | |
| Times Read: | 1 | |
| Last Read: | 05.15.24 |
Other Books Read By This Author (18)
- The Big Blowdown
- The Cut
- Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
- Drama City
- A Firing Offense
- Hard Revolution
- King Suckerman
- The Man Who Came Uptown
- The Martini Shot
- Nick's Trip
- The Night Gardener
- Owning Up
- Shame the Devil
- Shoedog
- The Sweet Forever
- The Turnaround
- The Way Home
- What it Was
| Date Read | Note |
| 05.15.24 | This is a novella told from a boxer's perspective. That's kind of the gimmick that the book is sold on, probably because it's only about 70 pages long and quite different from other Pelecanos work, except it really isn't. I don't know if this means that many of Pelecanos' characters are dogs or if this dog thinks just like a lot of Pelecanos' characters but the prose style is surprisingly similar. I don't know if I was expecting monosyllabic fragments or what. The story is fairly emotional. For any dog lover, putting dogs in peril is always pretty fraught - it is for me anyway - so the structure of the novella, chapters split between the dog's owners, really sets you up for some of these people mistreating him. I feel like nowadays I'm so sensitive towards dogs that even the chapters with "good" owners was still emotional. Thankfully it was short enough not to really wallow in details or take it to the end of his life. Not my favorite read of his but at least it's something. And just to come back to my previous note wondering why this wasn't included in his Owning Up collection, it looks like this has a different publisher? It's hard to tell with all the various imprints and whatnot. Like I think his deal is with Hachette (which is itself an imprint of Little, Brown, & Co), but Owning Up came out under Mulholland Books... but I think Hachette owns Mulholland? However, Buster was published under Akashic Books which I think is different. So I guess Hachette/Mulholland didn't want this so they shopped it to Akashic instead. mystery (presumably) solved. |
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