BRONWEN DICKEYis an essayist and journalist who writes regularly for the Oxford American. Her work has also appeared inThe New York Times,Slate, The Best American Travel Writing 2009,Newsweek,andOutside,among other publications. In 2009 she received a first-place Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award and a MacDowell Colony residency grant. She lives in North Carolina.
An NPR Best Book of 2016
A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016
“This is a very good book… Ms. Dickey has earned her reputation as
a first-rate reporter.” —The Wall Street Journal
"Terrific... [Dickey] does more than simply dispel the many myths
around pit bulls; she strives to explore what those myths can tell
us about ourselves. This beautifully written, heartbreaking book is
not just for dog lovers — it's for anyone interested in race,
class, history and the complexity of media narratives." —NPR
"Ms. Dickey not only writes about the ebb and flow of public fear
and loathing, she takes the reader on a thoroughly comprehensible
tour of genetics and behavioral science to explain why breeding
never guarantees an individual dog’s personality, and shouldn’t be
used to condemn it.... Picking out one breed to blame is neither
warranted nor effective, and a reader of her book will be hard put
to disagree." —The New York Times
“Brilliant… A powerful and disturbing book that shows how the rise
of the killer-pit bull narrative reflects many broader American
anxieties and pathologies surrounding race, class, and poverty… A
remarkable study of our capacities for cruelty and compassion
toward dogs and other humans, and an eloquent argument for
abandoning the fears and prejudices that have made pit bulls in
particular the victims of mistreatment.” —Christian Science
Monitor
“Like the pit bull itself, this book is sturdy, complicated and
resists easy categorization… As Dickey exhaustively demonstrates,
there is no ‘aggression gene’ and no such thing as a dangerous
breed.” —The New York Times Book Review
"In covering a subject that evokes strong, deep-seated emotions,
Dickey herself refrains from making sweeping judgments about the
pit-bull temperament. She neither condemns nor exalts these dogs.
The story of the pit bull is complex, and at times heartbreaking.
It’s fraught with cruelty and poverty, but also compassion,
generosity, and, occasionally, clear-headed thinking. Somehow,
Dickey manages to find hope for the future of this dog and its
reputation." —LA Review of Books
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