Raw Dog

Jamie Loftus

- $25.99

- $25.99

One of BookPage's Best Audiobooks of 2023

"Loftus is a charming narrator...goofy, engaging, and always game to do a silly voice." —The New York Times

"There’s something terribly irresistible about her narration, which is often incredibly funny." —BookPage

Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critique—comedian Jamie Loftus's debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now.

“Wise and funny” —ANDY RICHTER • “Gonzo yet vulnerable” —GABE DUNN • “Hot dog Moby-Dick” —BRANSON REESE • “Revealing, funny, sad, horny, and insatiably curious” —SARAH MARSHALL • “A wild ride” —ROBERT EVANS • “Deeply incisive and hilariously honest” —JACK O’BRIEN

Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They’re high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food, they’re kids' food, they’re hangover food, and they’re deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can’t avoid the great American hot dog.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It’s a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.

So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.

“One of the freshest and most insightful new comedic voices of this decade.” —LINDSAY ELLIS

A Macmillan Audio production from Forge Books.

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Things get hilarious and a little unsettling as writer and comedian Jamie Loftus examines the unlikely history of the hot dog. In the summer of 2021, Loftus and her boyfriend took a cross-country road trip across America, sampling every kind of dog you could imagine—from the salad-topped sausages of Chicago to the fried-bologna-wrapped franks of Baltimore. The trip provides plenty of fodder for Loftus’ comedic gifts, especially when she gets into topics like the inexplicable sexiness of champion hot dog eater Joey Chestnut. But there’s some real depth to Raw Dog, too, like when Loftus dives into the history of the food, including an in-depth examination of the labor movement in the meatpacking industry. The author’s well-honed skills as a stand-up comic and podcast host also make her a great audiobook narrator. You’ll never look at a hot dog the same.

GENRE