05/12/2007: "KIRKUS REVIEW (DEBUT FICTION ISSUE)"

Hi all,

So this comes from Kirkus Reviews, sort of a sneak-peek issue of the books coming out this summer. I also saw Vincent Lam's collection there, and CONSUMPTION by Kevin Patterson. Those previews aren't posted here, I'm afraid, but nice to see lots of Canucks with books coming out this summer.

All best, Craig.

The Fighter

Craig Davidson

Soho Press / July / 9781569474655 / $24.00

How many people would take a shot to the skull for their art? Craig Davidson found out while writing The Fighter, a barbarous portrait of bare-knuckle boxers that walks a fine line between the visceral and the lyrical. The book portrays the collision course between two fighters working their way through a global network of bloody underground matches. Fortunate son Paul Harris has something to prove: “I was fighting for someone. Myself,” he says. Paul meets his match in blue-collar pugilist Rob Tully, who’s
trying to live up to his family’s high expectations. To accurately portray their ferocious trade, the author trained as a boxer for months and put himself through a traumatic physical metamorphosis. “I got to understand the personas of the real fighters and the pretenders,” he says. “I picked up a lot of the physical sensations: the taste of a gumshield, the way your hands stink for hours, the way it feels to take an undefended punch to the melon.” While the novel’s brutal fights will entice readers of
other virile allegories like Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Davidson’s story takes a more nuanced, realistic approach. But that doesn’t mean the author isn’t above taking part in a publicity-arranged fight with another writer—or admitting that he lost. “They found the biggest, meanest poet I’d ever laid eyes on,”
he says. “I knew I was going to take a beating before the bell even rang. A damned good
time and a great turnout. Give people a little blood and they’ll come out in droves.”