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    The Fighter
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    The Fighter
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    The Fighter
    Ebook277 pages4 hours

    The Fighter

    By Michael Farris Smith

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    'You will not be disappointed' - Daily Mail

    From the author of Desperation Road, longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award 2017

    The acres and acres of fertile soil, the two-hundred year old antebellum house, both gone. And so is the woman who gave it to him. The foster mother who saved Jack Boucher from a childhood of abandonment now rests in a hospice. Her mind eroded by dementia, the family legacy she entrusted to Jack is now owned by banks and strangers. And Jack's mind has begun to fail, too, as concussion after concussion forces him to carry around a notebook of names that separate friend from foe.

    But in a single twisted night Jack is derailed. Losing the money that will clear his debt with the queen of Delta vice, and forcing Jack into the fighting pit one last time – the stakes nothing less than life or death.

    Praise for Michael Farris Smith

    'Smith’s fiction is full of hard people in tough situations, but his obvious love of language and innately rhythmic prose lift his stories to a higher level' - Big Issue

    'Every once in a while an author comes along who's in love with art and written language and imagery... writers like William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx. You can add Michael Farris Smith's name to the list' - James Lee Burke, New York Times bestselling author of Creole Belle and The Tin Roof Blowdown

    'Cinema written all over it... A particularly good novel if you like whispering 'Sh*t...' in an incredulous voice' - Shortlist

    'One of those wonderful and rare books that's both a page turner and a novel of great depth and emotion. The Fighter is Southern Noir at its finest ' - Ace Atkins, bestselling author of the Quinn Colson series

    'The Fighter is a book I wish I'd written but am deeply grateful I got to read. It is a masterful portrait of place and character and how one influences the other, with language that is both brutal and tender at once' - Attica Locke, author of Black Water Rising and Pleasantville

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNo Exit Press
    Release dateMar 29, 2018
    ISBN9781843449959
    Unavailable
    The Fighter
    Author

    Michael Farris Smith

    Michael Farris Smith has been awarded the Transatlantic Review Award, Brick Streets Press Short Story Award, Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Arts Fellowship, and the Alabama Arts Council Fellowship Award for Literature. He is a graduate of Mississippi State and the Center for Writers at Southern Miss. He lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with his wife and two daughters. Rivers is his first novel.

    Read more from Michael Farris Smith

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    Reviews for The Fighter

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    • 5/5
      Michael Farris Smith's latest novel is a heartbreaking story of a man for whom life has been far from kind. Jack Boucher is a bare-knuckles fighter on the down side of a punishing career. Now he must face one more fight for which his very survival is on the line. In this short novel Smith brings all of the pathos of the ring that Jack London brought to A Piece of Steak. My thanks to the folks at the Goodreads On the Southern Literary Trail group for giving me the opportunity to read and discuss this and many other fine books.
    • 5/5
      I have had this arc on my Kindle for over a month. I love this author, loved his previous two books, but hate boxing with a passion. Bare knuckle fighting? Just the thought makes me shudder. Kept putting off reading the book. Then several reviews from my friends, friend whose ratings I trust, all fours and fives. So, I picked it up, and in a short time became fully immersed in Jack's story.The amazing thing this author does so well is giving us a character, a desperate, down on his luck, end of his rope character, the kind of person if we met him in real life we would probably give them a wide berth. Yet, Farris makes the reader care about them, he has done it three times now for me, and I suspect he will do it again. Because what he also does is make this character vulnerable, gives us just enough, and maybe more, to cheer this character on, to want him to prevail. He has a tender spot, and this despite all the scary stuff makes him like us. This is a gritty, intense book, no getting around that. Had to put iit down several times, look away, but I also needed to pick it back up again, find out what happens. There is violence, quite a bit actually, a no holds barred fight, but there is so much more. There is tenderness and love, once again showing us that people are never just one thing, one way. It also shows how Jack got there, small glimpses into his past. No one is more surprised than I by my rating. All I can say is this book got to me, made me feel all the feels, and I know it is a book I will remember. So there you have it.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 3/5
      This was a short novel and I quite enjoyed it. New author to me and I did like his writing style. Succinct but with depth of characters even though it came across almost as thumbnail sketches, you got them. The story lays out a brief period in the protagonists life toward the end of his chosen violent career while trying for some small amount of redemption. Southern noir that is recommended.
    • 5/5
      I didn't want to finish this book because I really, really liked the hard-luck protagonist, Jack, and I didn't want to see even worse things happen to him. But I did finish, and I'm really glad I did. This is a very violent book, full of illegal bare-knuckle fighting and some very cruel people. It's about an abandoned toddler, and a woman of grace. And a man who doesn't see any way out of his situation but wants to honor this woman of grace.Despite the violence, despite the cringe-worthy moments, I loved this book. Although Jack and his situation are nothing like me and my situation, I could empathize with him. The characters were real to me. The only other book I've read by this author is Rivers, and that was excellent, too.
    • 3/5
      "He shoved the bag and it swung at him and he dodged and countered. The skin of his knuckles breaking as he grunted and gasped and ignored the throbbing behind his eyes..... Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and his heartbeat hurried in quick, hard thumps. He grabbed his chest and then he made a fist and punched himself in the forehead."Jack Boucher was a bare knuckle fighter until too many fights led him to memory loss and an addiction to pain killers. He is now in his 40s and is scrambling to pay off his debt to Big Momma Sweet who runs vice operations in the Mississippi Delta. He loses the payment money when he is robbed and now he might also lose the house of his dying foster mother unless he agrees to one last fight. I am going to have to accept the fact that this author and I just don't mesh. This was my second attempt to read one of his books. Perhaps there is too much testosterone-fueled idiocy for me. The writing in this grit lit was fine, in a sweaty, violent, hyper-masculine way, but the story bored me. The "one last fight" theme is such a cliché. I also was not drawn to the story of Annette, the tattooed stripper/carnival worker/savior and the convenient coincidence of her appearance to Jack. I thought this book was just OK. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.