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Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226284301    
Release Date: 2004-12-01

List Price: USD 16.00     Paperback

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Both a personal memoir and a French novelist's encounter with American reality, White Dog is an unforgettable portrait of racism and hypocrisy. Set in the tumultuous Los Angeles of 1968, Romain Gary's story begins when a German shepherd strays into his life: "He was watching me, his head cocked to one side, with that unbearable intensity of dogs in the pound waiting for a rescuer." A lost police canine, this "white dog" is programmed to respond violently to the sight of a black man and Gary's attempts to deprogram it--like his attempts to protect his wife, the actress Jean Seberg; like her endeavors to help black activists; like his need to rescue himself from the "predicament of being trapped, lock, stock and barrel within a human skin"--lead from crisis to grief.

Using the re-education of this adopted pet as a metaphor for the need to quash American racism, Gary develops a domestic crisis into a full-scale social allegory.

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arnet (France)

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