Product Description

DeLillo transforms the lurid elements of the thriller--espionage, assassination, pornography--into a work of art that captures the fevered shades of the latter-day American psyche.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101439 in Books
• Published on: 1989-07-17
• Released on: 1989-07-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Inside Flap
DeLillo's Running Dog, originally published in 1978, follows Moll Robbins, a New York city journalist trailing the activities of an influential senator. In the process she is dragged into the black market world of erotica and shady, infatuated men, where a cat-and-mouse chase for an erotic film rumored to "star" Adolph Hitler leads to trickery, maneuvering, and bloodshed. With streamlined prose and a thriller's narrative pace, Running Dog is a bright star in the modern master's early career.

Customer Reviews

DeLillo 101
For anyone who is looking to get involved in the paranoiac, conspiracy-riddled world of Don DeLillo, Running Dog is a perfect jumping-off point. Replete with all the DeLillo standards-ambiguous, dangerous characters, postmodern disenchantment, the spectre of violence and war, voyeurism, as well as humor, compassion and loss-Running Dog serves as DeLillo 101. Before engaging in the complexities of White Noise, Underworld, Mao II or Libra (for which Running Dog is a kind of template), try this shorter, lighter version of DeLillo's later work. The subject, at least initially, is simple: in the mad dash for material conquests (in this case, an antiquated porno film supposedly depicting members of the Third Reich engaged in lewd sexual acts) the combatants lose sight of their motives, their souls, and most alarmingly the item itself. Commentary on war, sex, greed and our modern version of self-realization.

My Favorite DeLillo Novel!
Running Dog is essentially a witty and sarodnic spy/intrigue/romance. DeLillo in a bar room brawl with Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Charles Willeford and Larry Flynt. It's like punk rock DeLillo. Filled with porn, sex, violence, apathy, lecherous men and empowered women and DeLillo's Hitler fixation, manifested here less incidentaly than in White Noise. For my money its the least indulgent and most readable and fun novel of DeLillo's ouevre. All Of Chuck Palahniuk's work is a sort of cross between Running Dog and Vonnegut's Sirens Of Titan and Cat's Cradle. If you like Palahniuk, then Running Dog will offer you a great bridge to step up to DeLillo. For those who were turned off to DeLillo after yawning through Underworld and its hype, then Running Dog will be a revelation. If you don't agree with Penguin Books and have a hard time considering White Noise to be one of the greatest books of the 20th Century, up there with Ulysses, The Big Sleep and Madame Bovary, (Don't worry-neither do I) take it from me- You'll love Running Dog. I won't bother giving you a plot summary because do you really need me to reiterate what the publisher and Amazon says above? Alrighty then. Running Dog's a lot of fun!

Like espionage, smut or Chimp's in suits?
The characteristic strongest in Running Dog is ominous suspense, a coming-to from any angle. While it suffers from the De Lillo style of excessive psycho-analysis/stream of consciousness association, it is made up of meetings, usually between two people, sometimes three, in varied and interesting places.
An airplane sauna, in a car heading south on a straight highway, a Nude Reading room, an art gallery/apartment, a vollyball court in Central Park where tennis is being played, a limousine with St. Bernard puppies, a fire escape, magazine offices, an abandoned espionage training facility, a motel in the woods, a minibus, Capitol Hill, a Georgetown home, an apartment roof, and more.
At these places peoples jockey for information or sexual connection, seeking the treasure which incites them all, directly and indirectly into a void of contact and codes.
I found Running Dog engrossing, and was amazed at De Lillo's capacity for langauge and image. His dialogue scenes begin without formality and are influenced as much by the memory or his characters as their present intentions.
Searching for a long lost film which may or may not come to rank as a legendary smut film, over a dozen characters cross paths in attempts toward victory and knowledge. Time and space shifts across the country, and an America of double and triple dealings, hidden collections and taboo tastes, lost and won partnerships skirts along toward understood oblivion.