City Dogs

by William Brashler

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060104481
• ISBN13: 9780060104481
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

True Grit

William Brashler's novel CITY DOGS is a slice of life from the extreme underbelly of 1960's Chicago. It is centered in the N. Broadway/Wilson Ave. part of town, an area known for alcoholism, poverty, criminality, and general all-around hi-jinks. There is no one really likable in CITY DOGS. It features Cubs fan Harry Lum, a 58 year old alcoholic Polish/American two-bit burglar; his step-sister Helen, a world class martyr who suffers endlessly for the sins of the men in her family and who enjoys complaining about it equally endlessly; and drug addicted Appalachian transplant Donald Ray Burl and his ill tempered sidekick Jimmy Del Corso, a purse snatching and petty robbery duo whose total incompetence has prevented their goal of legendary status from extending further than their own minds. Brashler is a good if not great writer. There are some instances where I felt he was self-consciously being a "writer" - Harry's welfare check, "his $171.05 of general assistance" was "in this case most generally and generously accepted by Harry Lum." Facile, but meaningless. And some of the dialog, even for the 60's, seems dated. It doesn't ring true that Donald Ray tells Harry, more than once, that he'll "bust him one." More specific profanity would seem to better exemplify what Donald would really have said. But these are quibbles, are at most occasional, and do not detract from the tension and almost perverse exuberance Brashler creates. He moves the story along rapidly with never a dull moment; and the segment in which Harry, Jimmy, and Donald Ray combine forces on a "big score" burglary is simultaneously funny and pathetic and is by itself worth the price of admission. CITY DOGS is not a perfect novel, but I love it, as will readers who enjoy their true city grit undiluted.