Dogeaters
SynopsisPlot
Welcome to Manila in the turbulent period of the Philippines’ late dictator. It is a world in which American pop culture and local Filipino tradition mix flamboyantly, and gossip, storytelling, and extravagant behavior thrive. A wildly disparate group of characters—including movie stars and waiters, a young junkie and the richest man in the Philippines—becomes ensnared in a spiral of events culminating in a beauty pageant, a film festival, and an assassination. At the center of this maelstrom is Rio, a feisty schoolgirl who will grow up to live in America and look back with longing on the land of her youth.
Story
About this book
Dogeaters is set in Manila during the final years of the Philippines' late dictator, a period when American pop culture and local Filipino traditions existed side by side in loud, sometimes contradictory ways. Jessica Hagedorn builds her novel around a wide cast of characters drawn from different layers of Manila's social world: movie stars, waiters, wealthy elites, a young addict, and others whose lives overlap and collide. The story moves toward a beauty pageant, a film festival, and a political assassination, pulling these characters into a shared spiral of events.
At the center is Rio, a schoolgirl observing the chaos around her. She will eventually leave the Philippines for the United States, and from that distance she recalls the country she grew up in. The novel shifts between voices and perspectives, mixing gossip, storytelling, and spectacle in a way that mirrors the culture it describes. Manila itself functions almost as a character, shaped by colonial history, cinema, political power, and everyday survival.
The book was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and received the American Book Award. Hagedorn, who was born in Manila and later moved to the United States, draws on both settings in her work.
