Killing the Second Dog
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Robert and Jacob are two down-and-out Polish con men living in Israel in the 1950s. They’re planning to run a scam on an American widow visiting the country. Robert, who masterminds the scheme, and Jacob who acts it out, are tough, desperate men, exiled from their native land and adrift in the hot, nasty underworld of Tel Aviv. Robert arranges for Jacob to run into the woman, who has enough trouble with her young son to keep her occupied all day. Her heart is open though, and the men are hoping her wallet is too. What follows is a story of love, deception, cruelty and shame, as Jacob pretends to fall in love with the American. But it’s not just Jacob who seems to be performing a role; nearly all the characters are actors in an ugly story, complete with parts for murder and suicide. Hlasko’s writing combines brutal realism with smoky, hardboiled dialogue, in a bleak world where violence is the norm and love is often only an act.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A glittering black comedy constitutes the English-language debut of a celebrated Polish writer. Hlasko (1934-1969) perfectly balances dark humor with pathos in this short, swift novel about two Polish exiles in Israel who execute an elaborate scheme: with the subtle help of Robert, his ``manager,'' the narrator, Jacob, woos vacationing American women. The suitor courts not with poetry or flowers, however, but with declarations of his own failure and refusals to enter a relationship (``I won't bring you luck. I'm a loser, you know. Nothing ever changes for men like me''). Robert, a Shakespeare devotee, coaches him: ``Smile like someone who's forced to lend his sports car to his mother-in-law . . . . Do you see your motivation now?'' But for all of the duo's clever plots and witty observations, they are not clowns; rather, they are tormented by history and memories of war, and by their own love of art as redemptive of the squalor they see around them. The weightiness of Hlasko's themes is counterpointed by minor characters who waver between the grotesque and the hilarious, such as the female target's horrid young son, resulting in a read that is equally entertaining and wrenching.
