$6.99 with 22 percent savings
Digital List Price: $8.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Marc Bojanowski
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Dog Fighter: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Marc Bojanowski (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 23 ratings
See all formats and editions

The anonymous narrator of this remarkable debut novel is a young drifter in search of his future. The son of a passionate beauty and gentle doctor, he roams the border between the United States and Mexico, eventually settling in a sleepy Baja town on the verge of transformation. Here he learns to stand face-to-face with dogs in a makeshift ring, to fight for money and fame, and becomes involved with a powerful and corrupt entrepreneur. But when he finds friendship with a revolutionary old poet and love with a beautiful, innocent girl, everything changes. Caught between the ways of his past and the dreams of his future, he must make a devastating choice that could cost him everything.

The Dog Fighter is an exhilarating tale of brutality and violence, love and wisdom, heartbreak and redemption.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    307 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    January 29, 2013
  5. File size
    4.3 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Twenty-seven-year-old Bojanowski takes a hard look at death and devotion in 1940s Mexico in this provocative debut. Narrated in a confident, macho-mythic voice ("The dead mens skins had paled some in the moonlight. But more from the dark slits in their throats. Like when a fish is brought from water") by an unnamed young man, the story follows his quest to find-and prove-himself. Raised on the stories of fierce men his grandfather told him, the narrator grows up cruel and strong, unmindful of his mother and disgusted by his sensitive father. He goes to California, kills a man and is sent back to Mexico, where he finds work in Canción, a small Baja city controlled by a corrupt businessman named Cantana. At first a worker on a Cantana construction project, the narrator falls under the spell of the dog fights, in which men, wearing a glove fitted with knives, battle dogs to the death. What begins as a search for fame and respect offers a chance to warm the narrator's heart: Cantana's stunning mistress, glimpsed in the midst of a gruesome dog fight ("Hot from the fighting and angry that I could not find her in the crowd of ugly faces I kicked the dog in the soft of its stomach"). Animal lovers and tenderhearted readers, beware. But the narrator forms a friendship with a sentimental poet, pines for the woman and tries to develop a conscience in a world that seems to have none. Eventually, of course, he must do battle with Cantana himself. Bojanowski is adept at charting the anxieties of a small city on the brink of expansion and the darkness of men's hearts.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

First-novelist Bojanowski tells a nihilistic, extremely violent story about a nameless, physically powerful Mexican who becomes a dog fighter. With his forearm wrapped in a heavy rug and his hand covered in a glove attached to a claw, he enters into mortal combat with vicious dogs. They fight in a ring surrounded by an audience of bloodthirsty men who are accompanied by their mistresses and bet on the outcome. The action is controlled by the powerful businessman Cantana, whose other interests include a hotel currently under construction, which has been firebombed by young protestors angry over Cantana's corrupt and violent business practices. The dog fighter is hopelessly in love with Cantana's mistress and is soon drawn into an ill-conceived political scheme. Told in a kind of formal if slightly fractured English, the story is rife with machismo and ominous overtones. But the narrator proves more interesting as a concept than as a character, which makes the reading much less compelling than initially promised. A flawed but distinctive debut from a writer to watch. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00APGJZSM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial (January 29, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 29, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.3 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 307 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0060597585
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 23 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Marc Bojanowski

Marc Bojanowski

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Marc Bojanowski is the author of the novels "The Dog Fighter" (Morrow, 2004) and "Journeyman" (SoftSkull, 2017). His work has appeared in The Literary Review, McSweeney's, and Granta. He is an adjunct instructor in the English Department at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
23 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Mdave
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites
    Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    I had not heard of this book until my brother recommended it a few years ago. Great book. It is violent, but not overly violent. It's grittiness is part of what makes it so great. Definitely worth a look.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • FictionAddiction.NET
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Writing Style Reminiscent of Hemingway
    Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2005
    Marc Bojanowski's debut novel is a story that finds power and beauty of life in the masculine brutality of Mexican dog fighting. If there is one word to describe this book, it is passion.

    Three major themes intertwine through The Dog Fighter. First is the theme of dog fighting, of the contrived struggle between man and beast that reflects the very soul of the protagonist. Second is the theme of unrequited love, as seen through the protagonist's unquenchable desire for a woman he can never have. The third theme is that of war, of the constant revolution that engulfs the town of Canciòn.

    It is during his first fight with a dog that the protagonist lays eyes on his love. This instant awareness of his love distracts him from the fight, minimizing the danger of the dog and emphasizing the danger of his heart. This is because the woman he falls in love with is the mistress of the Cantana, the brutal and corrupt businessman turning Canciòn from a quiet fishing village into a tourist resort for Americans.

    It is against these businessmen that the people of Canciòn revolt. These people want their fishing village to remain the way it always has been. They sabotage equipment and delay construction of the hotel which symbolizes the radical changes that this fishing village faces. The protagonist is drawn into this struggle. In the end, he must choose which side of the revolution he will support.

    There are no easy paths for the Dog Fighter.

    From the first whisperings of the Dog Fighter's grandfather to the final song sung by the Dog Fighter's love, this tale is absolutely engrossing.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • MacSalad
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This is the best book I've ever read. Hands down! Wow! Such an unexpected story.. such an unexpected ending... words can't describe how this book will affect you!
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • LAX
    1.0 out of 5 stars Can't Remember
    Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    FORGOTTEN.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings on this book.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2004
    I am not really sure how I feel about The Dog Fighter. It is about an unnamed young man who wanders from Mexico to California where he kills a man and then to a city on the Baja Peninsula. Once there, he is recruited to participate in fights with dogs. In theory, the macho Hemingwayesque prose and characters are things that would instantly turn me off from a book. On top of that, this is surely the most violent book I have ever read in my life (even more so than _Blood Meridian_). But, as I read on I saw that the violence was necessary to the story in a Cormac McCarthy-kind-of-way. The character's struggle to find himself and seek virtue and redemption reminded me of the best of Graham Greene (minus the Catholicism). I have been pondering this book since I finished it last night. This is the only book I have read in a long time that I have not formed a decisive opinion about once finishing it. It had a tremendous impact on me and I think it just might be great literature. The author's decision to use no punctuation other than periods got on my nerves at first and absorbed me by the end of the novel. However, I know that this is incredibly difficult reading: it really is astonishingly violent in its depictions of fights with dogs and men.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Miguel Tonnies
    3.0 out of 5 stars Third star is for the twist in the end
    Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    that made it a far better story.

    Even so, it coild be told, interestingly so, in a book half the size of this one.

    The writing style is reminiscent of south america ' s great writers, though it does not sound as good in english, in my humble opinion.

    All in all, not a novel to write home about.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Naomi Bradfute
    5.0 out of 5 stars Super awesome. Brilliant and reminiscent of Hemingway though without ...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Super awesome.Brilliant and reminiscent of Hemingway though without the misogynist overlay.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Alexa Lopez
    4.0 out of 5 stars "The Most Beautiful and Difficult Thing..."
    Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2004
    For an inaugural novel, Bojanowski laces his story with beautiful metaphors and poetic prose which makes much of the violent content subdued and contemplative. While the story is developed well, the main character's motives often go unexplained and despite the tragic turns of his life it is difficult to empathize as the dog fighter appears to lack any empathy for himself. It is written almost in a series of scenes intended to be developed for a movie so it is easy to become engrossed without becoming overemotional.

    The dog fighter and his graduation into manhood is cultivated with deep self-realizations, something you would not have expected from him from the beginning. Though the great size of his body and his brawn stir stories of mystic heroism, his thoughts and actions are much that of an ordinary man. I enjoyed the ride through his psyche which gave glimpses of some of the most "beautiful and difficult things."
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report