Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis [FIRST EDITION] 1997

Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis 

FIRST EDITION / 3rd PRINTING [1997] FARRAR STRAUS & GIROUX

Hardcover with dust jacket in very good condition.  Awesome matte dust jacket with metallic gold adornments. 

Dust jacket is in great shape; some mild shelf / rub wear.  In a new HQ archival quality jacket protector. 

Book itself is excellent.  Slight rubbing to boards.  Reads good as new. 

Here is a first novel like no other: a spellbinding tale that both creates its own fully realized world perspective and provides an incisive look at the ways that humans and animals resemble each other. A group of elegant monster dogs in top hats, tails, and bustle skirts become instant celebrities when they come to New York in 2008. Refugees from a town whose residents had been utterly isolated for a hundred years, the dogs retain the nineteenth-century Germanic culture of the humans who created them. They are wealthy and glamorous and seem to lead charmed lives - but they find adjusting to the modern world difficult, and when a young woman, Cleo Pira, befriends them, she discovers that a strange, incurable illness threatens them all with extinction. When the dogs construct their dream home, a fantastic castle on the Lower East Side, and barricade themselves inside, Cleo finds herself one of the few human witnesses to a mad, lavish party that may prove to be the final act in the drama of the lives of the monster dogs.