Dogfight, A Love Story
by By Burgess, Matt
Category: Fiction , Urban

Nineteen-Year-Old Alfredo Batista Has Some Worries. Okay, A Lot of Worries.Alfredo's Girlfriend, Isabel, Whom He Loves Completely, is Seven Months Pregnant. A Small-Time Drug Dealer, He is Struggling to Push Weed in a Depressed Economy and is Hopelessly Broke. Which is Way He And Isabel Sleep on His Parents' Couch.So Alfredo And His Partner in Crime, Winston, A Doughy Haitian Giant Who'd Rather Just Play Video Games, Make The Honest Mistake of Jacking Drugs from a Polethin Russian Kid, A Mistake That Catches the Attention of One of Queen's Biggest, and Most Vicious, Kingpins.Meanwhile, Alfredo's Older Brother Tariq is Returning from a Stretch in Prison After an Unsuccessful Burglary. A Crime That Alfredo Was Supposed to be Part of, Hence the Neighborhood Rumors that Alfredo Snitched on His Brother. Which May Have Something to do with the Fact That Isabel Used to Date Tariq, Whose Violent Streak is Probably Worry Number One On Alfredo's Considerable List.Also, He Needs To Steal A Pit Bull. For The Homecoming Dogfight.Matt Burgess Brings To Life The Rich And Vivid Milieu Of His Hometown Queens In All Its Glorious Variety. Here Is The Real New York, A Place Where Pakistanis, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Haitians, Anglos, African Americans, And West Indians Scrap And Mingle And Love. But The Real Star Is Burgess's Incredible Ear For Language---The Voices Of His Characters Leap Off The Page In Hilarious, Spot-On Dialogue. The Outer Boroughs Have Their Own Dialect, Where A Polite Greeting Is Fraught With Menace, And An Insult Can Be The Expression Of The Most Tender Love.With Its Intricately Constructed Plot And Electrically Colloquial Prose Style, Dogfight, A Love Story Establishes Burgess As A Brilliant New Voice In Contemporary Literature.