Product Description

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 endless surprises in this powerful new novel edged with black humour and poignancy. Mary Bellanova's life in the East Village has little direction, a string of temp jobs, a long unfinished collection of short stories, and hazy nights at the local bars. Then her boyfriend, Primo, changes everything. Other guys have abandoned Mary, but Primo chooses the most original route, he drops dead. Left to her own devices, Mary morphs into an urban heroine, boldly navigating city life, searching for a place to scatter Primo's ashes, dealing with his crazy mother and ex-girlfriends, and reluctantly opening her home to Primo's deranged dog, Numb. And suddenly, in a New York minute, Mary is a brand new woman, playing bass guitar in an all woman punk band and plunging into a head spinning relationship with a pierced, tattooed man call Howard.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #395926 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

About the Author
Arthur Nersesian was managing editor of the literary magazine The Portable Lower East Side in New York. He also teaches at Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College in the South Bronx since 1990.

Customer Reviews

You'll laugh -- I promise
I'm an impatient reader, I'll be the first to admit. Very often when I'm about halfway through with reading a novel, I'll skip to the back to see how it ends, or I'll often glance at the page number on the bottom and wonder, "how many more pages of this do I have to read?" But I loved Nersesian's Dogrun. Truly enjoyed it. I was thoroughly entertained -- and laughed frequently, which rarely happens even when I'm reading a novel.

The setting of the book is New York's East Village during the 1990s. The East Village stands as a kind of archetype "hipster" enclave (famous for its long history of resident artists and writers and burnouts). But what makes Dogrun work is it's sarcastic comic protagonist, Mary Bellanova. She comes home "after a long day of temping" to find her boyfriend, Primo, zonked out again watching TV. She yells at him, makes him supper and only much later realizes he isn't zonked out -- he's dead! A hilarious beginning, which sets the tone for the rest of the book. From there, starts a Citizen Kane-like exploration of who this boyfriend (who she apparently hardly knew) really was. That's the structural device that propels the narrative forward and Nersesian provides many madcap, picaresque adventures along the way, which includes Mary looking up his mother and ex-girlfriends and lovers.

The book, in part, is about Mary the "artist" (the protagonist is a would-be author), whose time may be running out (she 29, about to turn 30 -- signaling the end of her protracted adolescence).

The book is also, in a big way, about bohemia - or in this case the East Village, which represents it. (As much as the protagonist comes to realize that Bohemia is not a place, it's a state of mind -- or should we say a dream?) As in The Losers' Club by Richard Perez (which I also acquired from Amazon), we're given a tour of this unique, offbeat place - pre-9-11. "In the East Village, that soiled and unkept fountain of youth, there was no such thing as growing old gracefully," writes Nersesian. The pressure is on for Mary to do something with her life. Working for minimum wage at Kinko's no longer is a responsible option. "When you're young, you have all these chances, and with time you blow them, one after the other," Nersesian writes elsewhere. Since this a book about an artist, it also greatly involves failure and humiliation. (Failure and humiliation being the staple of any artist's life.) Learning to face certain realities and exasperating "market-place" expectations.

But along the way, there's great humor. Pratfall slapstick mixed with goofball sarcasm. I laughed on almost every page. If I have one complaint (or two), it's that the book should've ended a little earlier (page 235, for instance). Also the first half of the book is more carefully written than the last half in which Nersesian undercooks and overstuffs the narrative, dropping in too many characters and whacky mis-adventures -- every party needs to come to an end. But that's a minor complaint. Obviously, I enjoyed the book well enough to write this long review. This funny book get an A grade from me! Along with Perez's The Losers' Club, it's the best book I purchased from Amazon so far this year. Don't miss it!

Nersesian does it again!
Nersesian writes beautifully and hypnotises the reader with every word. Having read another of Nersesians books, I was expecting great things from this and was not disappointed.

The books humour is just the right side of dark and as you follow the main protagonist delving into the past love life of her recently passed lover, you realise she is starting to learn more about him dead than she did alive. Brilliant.

Fast moving, hilarious. Wouldn't let me put it down.
Brilliant.

Following in the footsteps of Coupland's urban generation, but in a more humorous way, Nersesian creates magic within the slightly seedy backdrop of New Yorks' East village. Nail bitingly compelling and full of genuine belly laughs, Dogrun had me gripped till the end.