American Pitbull Book

I guess I collect unsavory coffee table books. I have one of dead people in Wisconsin (the one-of-a-kind Wisconsin Death Trip); one that juxtaposes porn stars fully dressed in normal clothes and then, on the facing page, all porned up (30 Porn Star Portraits); one of taxidermied polar bears (Nanoq: Flatout and Bluesome); one of medical oddities (Mutter Museum). So why not a pit bull book with an essay from nonfiction fraud James Frey?

Let me say right away that Frey, in his essay, claims that his pair of pit bulls would roam the Hollywood hills at night, on their own, and sometimes lay a dead fox at the foot of his bed. I don't believe that. Also, his essay appears to have been written in about ten minutes.

The photos by Marc Joseph are sometimes awesome, occasionally exploitative, sometimes weird, and, in the case of two depicting a forced breeding session (think Silence of the Lambs, pit bull style), disturbing and a little upsetting. The only "fight" photo shows a pit bull latched on to a wild boar, because they are common hog hunting dogs in the south. But among the photos are wonderful interviews, conducted by Cory Reynolds, with long-time breeders and owners of these dogs. One of the best is with Louis Colby, a Massachusetts breeder of the (apparently) amazing type of pit bull called the Colby Strain -- his story alone seems to buck the stereotype of who owns pit bulls and why. I was also intrigued by the pulling competitions (some pit bulls can pull 6,000 pounds of bricks), and those photos reminded me of James Thurber's essay about his pit bull, who would drag home anything Thurber wanted him to, such as dresser drawers.

Many of the interviewees share their take on how "game" the dogs are -- gameness being the drive to complete a task. (Read the local paper and you'll see "gameness" reworded as "vicious" or "aggressive" or "dangerous.") Anyway...all the peeps in the book say that the dogs are not dangerous to humans, and about 1/3 of the interviewees say the dogs can be unpredictable around other dogs. I thought it was admirable how Cory Reynolds must have earned his subjects' trust in order to get them to open up about the characteristics of these dogs -- a refreshing change from the goofy narratives I see online, where rescuers of pit bulls seem to sugar-coat every dog's life story in an overcompensating attempt to change everyone's mind. Nothing like that in this book, thank goodness.