White Dog
290 pages
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5-1/2 x 8-1/2
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© 1970
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.
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.
"The tale serves as an excuse for Mr. Gary's comments on racial affairs in this country, a matter on which he is somewhat less pessimistic than the natives and a good deal more sensible."
"In this 'nonfiction novel' the white dog becomes an effective symbol of America's racial troubles and a focus for Gary's probing, sometimes brilliant, and frequently bitter analysis of black-white relations."--Library Journal
"What seems to begin as a tale of a sixty-year-old boy and his dog rapidly turns into a nightmare. . . . A good book reaching out in all directions--ghastly and funny and wise at once."--Harper's
"Gary charts his own 'intolerance of intolerance that is the curse of tolerance' and makes scathing attacks on self-aggrandising Jewish pro-black sentiment and self-serving celebrity campaigners (Marlon Brando is just 'a deluxe poodle pissing on the carpet'). But most vehement is Gary's critique of himself as a writer who has become an exhibitionist of conscience, achieving 'aristocracy' on the back of others."--Elena Seymanliyska, Guardian
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Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature | Fiction
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