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Cold Snap
A collection of stories by the author of "The Pugilist at Rest". They take readers from down-and-out in America to death and disease in Rwanda, introducing characters such as hard-luck fighters steeling themselves for battles they've already lost, and doctors who fall in love with their illnesses.
210 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
18 people are currently reading
523 people want to read
About the author
Thom Jones
28 books119 followersThom Jones (born January 26, 1945) was an American writer, primarily of short stories.
Jones was raised in Aurora, Illinois, and attended the University of Hawaii, where he played catcher on the baseball team. He later attended the University of Washington, from which he graduated in 1970, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, from which he received an M.F.A. in 1973.
Jones trained in Force Reconnaissance in the Marine Corps but was discharged before his unit was sent to Vietnam. This and other personal experiences, including the suicide of his boxer father in a mental institution, have become important sources of material for his fiction. After graduation from college, he worked as a copywriter for a Chicago advertising agency and later as a janitor, all the while reading and writing for hours each day. He was "discovered" well into his forties by the fiction editors of The New Yorker, who published a series of his stories in the early 1990s, including "The Pugilist at Rest", which won an O. Henry Award.
Jones resided in Olympia, Washington. He had temporal lobe epilepsy and suffered from diabetes.
In 1973, Jones published an animal-fantasy allegory in the dystopian George Orwell mode titled "Brother Dodo's Revenge" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
His first book, published in 1993, was the short-story collection The Pugilist at Rest. The stories deal with common themes of mortality and pain, with characters that often find a kind of solace in the rather pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Boxing, absent or mentally ill fathers, physical trauma and the Vietnam War are also recurring motifs. The collection was a National Book Award finalist. Jones' other two collections of short stories include Cold Snap (1995) and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (1999).
His story "Night Train," which originally appeared in the magazine Tin House, was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004. A humorous essay, "Easter Island Noodles Almondine," about time Jones spent as a youth working for the General Mills plant in Aurora, Illinois, appeared in an issue of Granta focused on Chicago, published in 2009. And "Bomb Shelter Noel," a story about a diabetic girl, was published in the January 2011 issue of Playboy.
Reports have appeared stating Jones wrote scripts for feature films, including a Vietnam screenplay for Cheyenne Enterprises, and an adaptation of Larry Brown's novel, The Rabbit Factory, for Ithaka Films.
John Updike in a Salon.com interview praised Jones as one of two writers of a younger generation he admired, and Updike included Jones' story, "I Want To Live!", in the anthology The Best American Short Stories of the Century.
Jones was raised in Aurora, Illinois, and attended the University of Hawaii, where he played catcher on the baseball team. He later attended the University of Washington, from which he graduated in 1970, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, from which he received an M.F.A. in 1973.
Jones trained in Force Reconnaissance in the Marine Corps but was discharged before his unit was sent to Vietnam. This and other personal experiences, including the suicide of his boxer father in a mental institution, have become important sources of material for his fiction. After graduation from college, he worked as a copywriter for a Chicago advertising agency and later as a janitor, all the while reading and writing for hours each day. He was "discovered" well into his forties by the fiction editors of The New Yorker, who published a series of his stories in the early 1990s, including "The Pugilist at Rest", which won an O. Henry Award.
Jones resided in Olympia, Washington. He had temporal lobe epilepsy and suffered from diabetes.
In 1973, Jones published an animal-fantasy allegory in the dystopian George Orwell mode titled "Brother Dodo's Revenge" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
His first book, published in 1993, was the short-story collection The Pugilist at Rest. The stories deal with common themes of mortality and pain, with characters that often find a kind of solace in the rather pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Boxing, absent or mentally ill fathers, physical trauma and the Vietnam War are also recurring motifs. The collection was a National Book Award finalist. Jones' other two collections of short stories include Cold Snap (1995) and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (1999).
His story "Night Train," which originally appeared in the magazine Tin House, was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004. A humorous essay, "Easter Island Noodles Almondine," about time Jones spent as a youth working for the General Mills plant in Aurora, Illinois, appeared in an issue of Granta focused on Chicago, published in 2009. And "Bomb Shelter Noel," a story about a diabetic girl, was published in the January 2011 issue of Playboy.
Reports have appeared stating Jones wrote scripts for feature films, including a Vietnam screenplay for Cheyenne Enterprises, and an adaptation of Larry Brown's novel, The Rabbit Factory, for Ithaka Films.
John Updike in a Salon.com interview praised Jones as one of two writers of a younger generation he admired, and Updike included Jones' story, "I Want To Live!", in the anthology The Best American Short Stories of the Century.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
June 9, 2012
Brutal and Brittle
I first ran into Thom Jones at Portland Community College, of course not in person, but his short story “I Want to Live!” was assigned for analysis in a creative writing class. I immediately wanted to know more, read more and find out if his greatness prevailed in the rest of his work. So I must admit that I picked up his book with a favorable bias in my pocket. In Cold Snap, Jones’ second collection of short stories, there is a strong voice telling tales where there are often no winners. It is a real gut shot delivered on the page. These stories explore, no, they witness tragic moments and deal with loss and illness in way that could only be summed up as brutal. Yet, even though the collection has some horrific imagery, situations, and predicaments, Jones is able to point out the beauty in it all.
Jones is an excellent story teller, his diction and syntax fluctuate between a doctor telling you how long you have to live and a drunk guy at the bar slapping you on the back and telling you a wild one. Enough already with what I think about him, let’s let him speak for himself. Jones invites us to get a little closer around the fire with his choice in narrative tones, drawing us in with an authentic, personable, conversation-like canter to his sentences. This invitation can be seen in almost all of his opening lines. The opener for “Cold Snap” is a great example: “Son of a bitch, there’s a cold snap and I do this number where I leave all the faucets running…” Syntactically his sentences stay true to human speech patterns, and this gives his stories an edge of realness, a sensual and imagined closeness. This doctor—patient relationship, a culture of trust between reader and narrator, is how Jones breaks the bad news to us. It is the only way we get through what he is about to tell us.
And what Jones is about to tell us, is suddenly beautiful, suddenly terrifying and inescapably permanent. He handles his dramatic moments, those pivot points where nothing will ever be the same, with grace as he allows them to just be what they are. Brutal. Eye-opening. Jones presents these impactful elements with a casual, unobstructed demeanor. At the mid-point in the story “Cold Snap” we are privy to a flash back about the sister to the POV character, “I remember hearing the gun pop and how she came into my room (I was home from college for the summer) and said, “Richard, I just shot myself, how come I’m not dead?” And there it is, just laid out there like it is perfectly normal. No lace or frilly language inflicting meaning on it, just the cold facts. Jones does dig deeper into the experiences once they are presented. Just not as he is presenting them. The following line shows us the other side of such a tragedy, “Her voice was calm instead of the usual fingernails-on-the-chalkboard voice, the when-she-was-crazy (which was almost always) voice, and I realized later that she was instantly cured, the very moment the bullet zipped through her brain.” Jones cares about his readers; he takes them to the depths of hell, but brings plenty of water and flashlights. Just when a moment is getting too intense, he pulls back and offers the reader a rest stop of alternative meanings and outcomes from said events.
Jones maintains his gentleness as he works with a troubled relationship between a father and a son in “Superman, My Son” and the decaying illness of a lonely old woman in “I Need a Man to Love Me.” In the latter, his ample and crisp descriptions show us suffering under a microscope. In this story, a woman has lived with illness and in solitude for the greater portion of her life. Jones delivers her state to us in chilling details about her brittle hands. And yet slips in humor and irony and perspective to offset the brutality once again, “The right hand was a little stronger. Not a lot, but it was her bread-and-butter hand. As the years passed it also got weaker. She wasn’t Stephen Hawking yet, or like that guy with the left foot, Christy Brown, but close.” Time and time again Thom Jones manages to take us right up to the edge of brutality and demand we see the beauty in it. He pulls this off by modulating between the intense and the funny.
I recommend to anyone thinking of writing short stories to study this man for his skills. Jones captures the essence of complexity and isn’t shy of the grotesque truths about life. He leads us towards a place where all life, whether it is traumatic or severe, enlightening or hopeless, bleak and isolated, is somehow still vibrant with meaning and purpose. I hope we can all learn a little about grace from this amazing author.
I first ran into Thom Jones at Portland Community College, of course not in person, but his short story “I Want to Live!” was assigned for analysis in a creative writing class. I immediately wanted to know more, read more and find out if his greatness prevailed in the rest of his work. So I must admit that I picked up his book with a favorable bias in my pocket. In Cold Snap, Jones’ second collection of short stories, there is a strong voice telling tales where there are often no winners. It is a real gut shot delivered on the page. These stories explore, no, they witness tragic moments and deal with loss and illness in way that could only be summed up as brutal. Yet, even though the collection has some horrific imagery, situations, and predicaments, Jones is able to point out the beauty in it all.
Jones is an excellent story teller, his diction and syntax fluctuate between a doctor telling you how long you have to live and a drunk guy at the bar slapping you on the back and telling you a wild one. Enough already with what I think about him, let’s let him speak for himself. Jones invites us to get a little closer around the fire with his choice in narrative tones, drawing us in with an authentic, personable, conversation-like canter to his sentences. This invitation can be seen in almost all of his opening lines. The opener for “Cold Snap” is a great example: “Son of a bitch, there’s a cold snap and I do this number where I leave all the faucets running…” Syntactically his sentences stay true to human speech patterns, and this gives his stories an edge of realness, a sensual and imagined closeness. This doctor—patient relationship, a culture of trust between reader and narrator, is how Jones breaks the bad news to us. It is the only way we get through what he is about to tell us.
And what Jones is about to tell us, is suddenly beautiful, suddenly terrifying and inescapably permanent. He handles his dramatic moments, those pivot points where nothing will ever be the same, with grace as he allows them to just be what they are. Brutal. Eye-opening. Jones presents these impactful elements with a casual, unobstructed demeanor. At the mid-point in the story “Cold Snap” we are privy to a flash back about the sister to the POV character, “I remember hearing the gun pop and how she came into my room (I was home from college for the summer) and said, “Richard, I just shot myself, how come I’m not dead?” And there it is, just laid out there like it is perfectly normal. No lace or frilly language inflicting meaning on it, just the cold facts. Jones does dig deeper into the experiences once they are presented. Just not as he is presenting them. The following line shows us the other side of such a tragedy, “Her voice was calm instead of the usual fingernails-on-the-chalkboard voice, the when-she-was-crazy (which was almost always) voice, and I realized later that she was instantly cured, the very moment the bullet zipped through her brain.” Jones cares about his readers; he takes them to the depths of hell, but brings plenty of water and flashlights. Just when a moment is getting too intense, he pulls back and offers the reader a rest stop of alternative meanings and outcomes from said events.
Jones maintains his gentleness as he works with a troubled relationship between a father and a son in “Superman, My Son” and the decaying illness of a lonely old woman in “I Need a Man to Love Me.” In the latter, his ample and crisp descriptions show us suffering under a microscope. In this story, a woman has lived with illness and in solitude for the greater portion of her life. Jones delivers her state to us in chilling details about her brittle hands. And yet slips in humor and irony and perspective to offset the brutality once again, “The right hand was a little stronger. Not a lot, but it was her bread-and-butter hand. As the years passed it also got weaker. She wasn’t Stephen Hawking yet, or like that guy with the left foot, Christy Brown, but close.” Time and time again Thom Jones manages to take us right up to the edge of brutality and demand we see the beauty in it. He pulls this off by modulating between the intense and the funny.
I recommend to anyone thinking of writing short stories to study this man for his skills. Jones captures the essence of complexity and isn’t shy of the grotesque truths about life. He leads us towards a place where all life, whether it is traumatic or severe, enlightening or hopeless, bleak and isolated, is somehow still vibrant with meaning and purpose. I hope we can all learn a little about grace from this amazing author.
June 15, 2016
Read this book and never have a happy thought for the rest of your life.
November 13, 2007
"Son of a bitch, there's a cold snap and I do this number where I leave all the faucets running ..."
I'd give it five stars just for that opening, which begins the title story, which is a piece of brilliance. Hope he's still out there writing.
I'd give it five stars just for that opening, which begins the title story, which is a piece of brilliance. Hope he's still out there writing.
Read
March 16, 2023DNF. coulda handled 'quicksand' or 'ooh baby baby' separately i think, but one after the other? idk if i've ever wanted 2 chars to STFU so bad. still gonna try pugilist on for size however
Read
November 15, 2021 Literally 3/4 of these are about a doctor working in Africa who's really seen some shit, man, and so what if he has to cope with the occasional ampule of morphine, if you'd been forced to grapple with the raw wound of human existence you'd be doing the same, not that you'd ever have the courage of a man like that, or of men who write about men like that.
To be clear these are not the same character, just the only character that Thom Jones likes to write.
To be clear these are not the same character, just the only character that Thom Jones likes to write.
Read
August 10, 2024Some good stories in between kind of annoying stories. Can't say I enjoyed it as much as "The Pugilist at Rest".
July 25, 2008
Thom Jones (try bringing him up in conversation, your second sentence will be, "No, not the guy who sang 'It's Not Unusual'") never went to Vietnam. But he writes about boxers, soldiers, and the mentally ill with startling precision. In his previous collection, "The Pugilist at Rest", the characters are some combination of all three of these, and you buy every word, you believe he was there, and on a certain level, that you are there. "Cold Snap" is nowhere near being a worthy follow-up. When I first picked it up I believed that this collection had been released years after the first, perhaps even a decade, instead of only a year later. The stories are extremely uneven, the dialogue painful, and even though you still have that sense and feeling of truth and "being there" from "Pugilist" (I honestly cannot tell if he worked as an aid worker in Africa or not) that made you believe he was a soldier, boxer, and suffered from various ailments (he is or was all of these things, in addition to being an epileptic and diabetic), the language isn't on par with the experiences. It does pick up towards the middle, and while I enjoyed Rocketfire Red I can understand why it's the only story in this collection that was previously unpublished, as the Australian dialect of the narrator borders on the absurd in every other paragraph. Of the last few stories, "I Need a Man to Love Me", about an invalid woman slowly wasting away in her shotgun home in New Orleans, and "Dynamite Hands", another story about a beaten-down boxer, are excellent enough to be thought of as "Pugilist at Rest" b-sides, and make you remember why Thom Jones was, for a brief period, considered a master of the short-story form, a title that parallels the short-lived triumphs and long declines of the beaten down boxers in his best stories.
If you're a fan of the cult of the Iowa Writer's workshop, or you're a writer yourself who often appreciates those authors who can only ever appeal to other writers, then by all means pick this collection up. Otherwise, read "Pugilist", smile, and imagine that Thom Jones wrote one truly amazing collection and faded away, just as most of his characters are fated to do.
If you're a fan of the cult of the Iowa Writer's workshop, or you're a writer yourself who often appreciates those authors who can only ever appeal to other writers, then by all means pick this collection up. Otherwise, read "Pugilist", smile, and imagine that Thom Jones wrote one truly amazing collection and faded away, just as most of his characters are fated to do.
January 28, 2019
The great ones are great, the not great ones are a little tedious.
I've been on this quest to read a bunch of the books I bought and never got to. Because after reading them, I can usually donate/recycle/trash most of them.
Honestly, I've been leaving most of them in a little free library on the college campus near my apartment.
Little free libraries are kind of hilarious. Do you ever look in one regularly? It's almost entirely shit. Not even shit like, "This is stuff I don't want to read." Shit like, "This is shit NOBODY wants to read."
Because mine's on a college campus, tons of books with that little spine label that says USED, black letters on yellow sticker tape. You know the one. Whoever designed and sells that tape must have made a fortune. This is a secret billionaire in the book-selling business. Make a label, have them printed in bulk in China, then make a fortune. That's been THE college bookstore label for like a couple decades, at least. There must be millions of these things.
I've been on this quest to read a bunch of the books I bought and never got to. Because after reading them, I can usually donate/recycle/trash most of them.
Honestly, I've been leaving most of them in a little free library on the college campus near my apartment.
Little free libraries are kind of hilarious. Do you ever look in one regularly? It's almost entirely shit. Not even shit like, "This is stuff I don't want to read." Shit like, "This is shit NOBODY wants to read."
Because mine's on a college campus, tons of books with that little spine label that says USED, black letters on yellow sticker tape. You know the one. Whoever designed and sells that tape must have made a fortune. This is a secret billionaire in the book-selling business. Make a label, have them printed in bulk in China, then make a fortune. That's been THE college bookstore label for like a couple decades, at least. There must be millions of these things.
December 22, 2014
This book is a collection of dark stories that are separate from each other, but all share a melancholy, hopeless, and submissive tone. Seems like every main character is hanging by a thread and doesn't care. It got old pretty quickly sadly. The first pages are A++, the first three stories are great, and the last story is kind of good, but that's it. I liked the overall darkness of the book, which kept me reading.
The Red Rocket story was awfully unreadable. I found myself skimming through this one, because of the style of writing with a strong accent. All of the references the characters mention in this story....all of them....I was not familiar with. I had no idea what was going on with the details of this story, but I got the gist that this guy put all his money into a race car, won a lot of races, and lost in the championship by a tenth of second leaving him with no money. The End. Thankfully this was just one story.
It was just ok....I wouldn't recommend this book.
The Red Rocket story was awfully unreadable. I found myself skimming through this one, because of the style of writing with a strong accent. All of the references the characters mention in this story....all of them....I was not familiar with. I had no idea what was going on with the details of this story, but I got the gist that this guy put all his money into a race car, won a lot of races, and lost in the championship by a tenth of second leaving him with no money. The End. Thankfully this was just one story.
It was just ok....I wouldn't recommend this book.
August 27, 2008
I went through a short story phase, that's all I read, and this is another great collection of stories. I think Jones is at his best describing war and the military; his style of prose just fits the topic. His other stories are interesting but don't have the same power. His love of boxing is showcased in the last story of the book. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first three stories in, "The Pugilist at Rest," but those three stories are the gold-standard for how a short war story should be written. This is a very readable collection, and worth the time. I think it appeals to men and women equally.
August 18, 2015
Mr. Jones' first collection of short stories, 'The Pugilist at Rest', blew me away. I recall closing the cover on the final story in the collection and breathing a quiet "Dammmn..." from the emotional gut punch. I picked up 'Cold Snap' hoping for more of the same impassioned, soulful writing and got...ehhhh. 'Cold Snap' settles into a sad but comfortable groove and kind of stays there. All of the stories deal with similar bleak themes, defeated characters, and familiar subject matter (Africa, aid workers, mental illness, disease, etc.). It's not bad, per se, just a bit of a step-down after the blazing intensity of 'The Pugilist at Rest'.
January 10, 2013
ondata di noia
ma che due palle...c'è sempre un banale antieroe che guarda le gambe alle donne, in più questo qui si becca la malaria in Africa, mentre è là a lavorare come medico, e per farsi piacere il tutto butta giù quantitativi industriali di alcool e droghe...poi ci sono quelli che sono tornati, e perfino una protagonista donna che però è un maschiaccio e guida auto da corsa autoprodotte...il tutto scritto come al solito: in stile finto frenetico...
ma che due palle...c'è sempre un banale antieroe che guarda le gambe alle donne, in più questo qui si becca la malaria in Africa, mentre è là a lavorare come medico, e per farsi piacere il tutto butta giù quantitativi industriali di alcool e droghe...poi ci sono quelli che sono tornati, e perfino una protagonista donna che però è un maschiaccio e guida auto da corsa autoprodotte...il tutto scritto come al solito: in stile finto frenetico...
July 26, 2007
"Don't come the raw prawn with me, Dorey," I says. "Don't do me block; I'm no drongo's potato peeler. Wilbur, Col, and Bluey are me mates and there's no more to it. It's you that's been dipping around. Commitin' the intimacy. Don't cometh the uncooked crustacean."
July 5, 2020
I read Cold Snap simultaneously with the pugulist at rest and had read Sonny Liston was a friend of mine. Thom Jones does not write bad stories period. I think he's a perfect storm of a writer where pugist and sucicide father passes boxing and depression genes to son, mix in alcohol and you the magic triage. the only writer whose on his level is bukowski and these guys give it to you raw and straight. you have to suffer to a fairly high degree to write like this and the people giving this bad rewiews i want to ask what the fuck to do want? in general the short story is an underrated, difficult form the thom jones mastered it. my only regret is he never published his novel it just wasn't good enough for him.
d
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February 8, 2020
To put it in terms of albums by The Rolling Stones, The Pugilist at Rest is Let It Bleed and Cold Snap is Exile on Main St. Both great albums in their own right. However the latter both seem a little more subdued and less raw.
There are some gems in Cold Snap;
Superman, My Son.
Quicksand.
Rocketfire Red.
Cold Snap.
I Need a Man to Love Me.
Jones seemed to be preoccupied with Africa and Doctors at this point in his life and it’s evident in more than a few of these stories. Almost Hemingwayesque.
Overall, an excellent collection of bleak, bitter sweet stories, but not at all as powerful and as edgy as Pugilist.
There are some gems in Cold Snap;
Superman, My Son.
Quicksand.
Rocketfire Red.
Cold Snap.
I Need a Man to Love Me.
Jones seemed to be preoccupied with Africa and Doctors at this point in his life and it’s evident in more than a few of these stories. Almost Hemingwayesque.
Overall, an excellent collection of bleak, bitter sweet stories, but not at all as powerful and as edgy as Pugilist.
June 16, 2023
It's the literary equivalent of a John Cassavetes film: it's loud, the mix is weird, there's a lot of screaming and uncomfortable close ups. It continues like this for about two hours and then ends. That's Thom Jones for you. There's a theatrical quality to his writing in that it always seems like his characters are performing, acting a little over the top, and yet Jones does this with such humanity and empathy that it's entirely believable. You wantthese characters to be real, to be the essence of what it means to exist, and Jones does that. He celebrates the intensity of waking up each day and taking another breath.
May 6, 2024
Jones's second collection, I first read this in 2003 shortly after I stumbled upon his first collection, The Pugilist at Rest, by happenstance in a used bookstore. I don't know if these stories are better necessarily than his first collection, The Pugilist at Rest, but they are richer and more vibrant. Jones’s second collection, many of these stories feature similar characters and themes; several include doctors who defy the stereotype as they serve or return from humanitarian assignments in Africa, something frequently featured in the media in the 80s and 90s. There are also the Marines and the boxers ubiquitous to Jones stories, those suffering illness, facing death. Jones brings us an eclectic mix of characters, not quite as downtrodden or focused on debauchery as Bukowski’s, there is more variance in Jones’s. There are ten stories, here are very brief synopsis’s of a few of the better ones, the first four are my favorite.
Cold Snap: A manic depressive doctor, fired from his NGO job in Africa and without a license in the US, checks out his brain damaged sister from her assisted care home; she had unsuccessfully attempted suicide and lives with the devastating result.
Superman, My Son: A father visits his son, who is suffering from manic depression. Also visiting is his nephew, a doctor who recently returned from Africa, weak, with an unknown illness.
Way Down Deep in the Jungle: The story of a Kiwi doctor volunteer with an NGO in Africa, his whiskey loving baboon, and the local staff and other western expats.
Quicksand: My boy Ad Magic returns, this time he’s malarial and with a broken thumb, working for a direct mail charity outfit in the Great Lakes region of Africa when he encounters a beautuful Danish doctor headed for Zaire.
Ooh Baby Baby: A plastic surgeon returns to LA from Africa, suffering from an embarrassing illness. He spends his time racing around in a sportscar.
Rocketfire Red: An Aborigine surfer takes up drag racing. This story was good but reading it was a pain as Jones used too much idiom and Aussie accented slang.
Pot Shack: A marine at Camp Pendleton mouths off to a Captain, and gets 30 days of mess duty, and the man isn’t done with him after that. The story is one of camraderie between these young, immature Marines as they prepare to deploy to Vietnam.
Dynamite Hands: Story of a trainer, a former boxer himself, getting his fighter ready for a couple of fights and their interactions with other trainers, sparing partners, and older fighter struggling to keep themselves in the game and maintain their pride.
Thom Jones was one of my favorite short story writers, this collection was his second of three published before he died in 2016. I recently learned a fourth collection was published a few years later and will be reading that collection soon.
Cold Snap: A manic depressive doctor, fired from his NGO job in Africa and without a license in the US, checks out his brain damaged sister from her assisted care home; she had unsuccessfully attempted suicide and lives with the devastating result.
Superman, My Son: A father visits his son, who is suffering from manic depression. Also visiting is his nephew, a doctor who recently returned from Africa, weak, with an unknown illness.
Way Down Deep in the Jungle: The story of a Kiwi doctor volunteer with an NGO in Africa, his whiskey loving baboon, and the local staff and other western expats.
Quicksand: My boy Ad Magic returns, this time he’s malarial and with a broken thumb, working for a direct mail charity outfit in the Great Lakes region of Africa when he encounters a beautuful Danish doctor headed for Zaire.
Ooh Baby Baby: A plastic surgeon returns to LA from Africa, suffering from an embarrassing illness. He spends his time racing around in a sportscar.
Rocketfire Red: An Aborigine surfer takes up drag racing. This story was good but reading it was a pain as Jones used too much idiom and Aussie accented slang.
Pot Shack: A marine at Camp Pendleton mouths off to a Captain, and gets 30 days of mess duty, and the man isn’t done with him after that. The story is one of camraderie between these young, immature Marines as they prepare to deploy to Vietnam.
Dynamite Hands: Story of a trainer, a former boxer himself, getting his fighter ready for a couple of fights and their interactions with other trainers, sparing partners, and older fighter struggling to keep themselves in the game and maintain their pride.
Thom Jones was one of my favorite short story writers, this collection was his second of three published before he died in 2016. I recently learned a fourth collection was published a few years later and will be reading that collection soon.
April 12, 2025
Thom Jones is a great short story writer, and the last story in this dark, rollicking collection of stories Dynamite Hands is one of the best things I have ever read. Jones writes about people who are living on the extreme and the outcomes of their stories are generally discomforting but they are always entertaining. Harry Crews and Thomas Mcguane come to mind as similar writers but there is an adrenaline to Jones prose that sucks the reader in to his characters dismal adventures. Reads anything you can find by Thom Jones, I plan too.
January 13, 2018
More adrenaline-pumping-thru-the-heart, seat-of-the-pants, do-you-kiss-your-mother-with-that-mouth stories in the vein of his first collection, Pugilist At Rest. Some real rippers in here, but more hit-and-miss than his earlier collection. Rocketfire Red, for instance, may be the worst story put into print. But the heart is still there, burning all the way through. Bloody bonza, mate, bung 'er on a plate.
April 9, 2018
prose that’s dense but still manages to zoom. stories are high-octane yet half-despairing, lives often caught between continents. fed my risk-craving tendencies in book form.
i loved it less by the end, but was so charmed by his acknowledgments (love for craft, love for editors, frankness about mental health) that three stars became four.
i loved it less by the end, but was so charmed by his acknowledgments (love for craft, love for editors, frankness about mental health) that three stars became four.
January 10, 2022
Thom Jones is bit of a self-parody but not in a good way. All his protagonists are obnoxious in the extreme, Ugly Americans to a man. For some reason this is the second of his books I've read and I've actually also got a third collection to read sometime too. I got tired of this two thirds of the way through...
September 14, 2022
Tropical medicine satire, some slapstick shit. Pretty damn funny in places and studded with some heavyweight sentences. First short story was far and away my favorite, the one where his sister shoots herself in the face, and she becomes instantly cooler to her brother. Not in some depraved way, just objectively cooler.
September 11, 2014
I found this book in a discount bookstore and picked it up for 3$ because it was a story collection, and I recognized the name from Best American Short Stories. I was further suprized when a friend had told me that Thom Jones was “required reading for minimalist writers” having read the story “I Want to Live!” (from BASS) a dosen times, and this collection, I’m not so sure this is accurate, it is not distinctively minimalist, maybe he had Jones confused with someone else. I would like to get some more information about this but as that friend does not ever talk with me I guess it will be left a mystery. As for the book itself, I have mixed feelings about it. There were some good things in it and I was able to get through the book (in paper form mind you), in only 24 days, this may be a record for me, I’m a very slow reader, and getting through the book in such a timely manner is at least one indicator of quality. However there were a number of flaws with the book too, as you will see. Now onto the stories individually.
Cold Snap – the title story and hands down the best story of the collection. The story is the second (or third) shortest in the collection, poignant, and has the best ending of any story in the book. The story is about a defrocked American doctor who has just returned from Africa who is taking care of his sister who suffers from severe brain damage. It sets up and addresses 4 different themes that run throughout the collection. These themes are: Africa, Disease, Smoking, and Cars.
Superman, My Son – also a very good story, this story is about a father going to visit his son who is suffering from bipolar disorder, and while at his son’s house he visits with his daughter-in-law and a nephew who has just returned from a trip to Africa.
Way Down Deep in the Jungle – the story focuses on an American doctor working in Africa with his pet gorilla, a long story largely based around a conversation between said doctor and two pilots who have just landed in the village setting. Themes are fine in a novel, but on running themes in a short story collection is something else. Each story is supposed to be a small novel, and individual universe. When you see this many themes running through a collection you start to get the feeling that this Thom Jones is a bit of a one trick pony. Again the reason the first story is so good is because it sets this tone, while the rest of them just rehash it.
Quicksand – this story is about an advertisement writer working for charity named “Ad Magic” who is stuck at a hotel somewhere in the congo with intestinal problems. Starting with this story and progressing for the rest of the book, the writing takes on a more and more lowbrow language. This story also features a very inappropriate sex scene (with regards to the context of the story), which I must say he does not write well. This is the longest story in the collection. The one thing it does have going for it is it seems to be reminiscent of David Foster Wallace’s “Westward.”
Pickpocket – the shortest story of the collection, and one of only 2 stories that does not have anything to do with Africa. There is disease though (diabetes), smoking (being the cause of the narrator losing his legs), and cars (a Saab). True to its title, the story is about a pickpocket, and a pretty good, it was refreshing to see something a little different.
Ooh Baby Baby – a story about a doctor who has returned from Africa, who is suffering from impotence caused by diabetes. It starts off with him driving around hard in his Porsche, and not really worth reading at this point. This is probably the low point of the whole collection, the rest of the stories get better after this.
Rocketfire Red – the other of the two stories that does not have anything to do with Africa, but it deals heavily with cars as it’s about an Australian surfer girl who gets involved with a drag racing group. It’s not bad, but it’s written with a strong Australian dialect, using alternative spelling to get the accent across, which adds to the difficulty in reading it.
I Need a Man to Love Me – this story is about a handicap woman struggling to live on her own and her recently out of jail quazi-boyfriend. I would put this down as the second best in the collection, though very heavy. I prefer its original title “Nights in White Satin” over the one that was used in the book.
Pot Shack – a story about marines in training before they leave for Vietnam, the main character is forced to endure mess hall duty for a full month for some mouthing off incident with a superior, trying to explain how he deserves privileges because of an upcoming boxing match (boxing appears in 3 of these stories). The story is okay, but the language is very lowbrow.
Dynamite Hands – a story about a boxer and his big fight, kind of reminds me of Hemingway’s “Fifty Grand.” Not too bad, but again lowbrow and also fairly difficult to follow with all the characters.
I may not have loved the collection, but I will be reading his other two at some point in the near future. Half the stories are pretty good at least.
Cold Snap – the title story and hands down the best story of the collection. The story is the second (or third) shortest in the collection, poignant, and has the best ending of any story in the book. The story is about a defrocked American doctor who has just returned from Africa who is taking care of his sister who suffers from severe brain damage. It sets up and addresses 4 different themes that run throughout the collection. These themes are: Africa, Disease, Smoking, and Cars.
Superman, My Son – also a very good story, this story is about a father going to visit his son who is suffering from bipolar disorder, and while at his son’s house he visits with his daughter-in-law and a nephew who has just returned from a trip to Africa.
Way Down Deep in the Jungle – the story focuses on an American doctor working in Africa with his pet gorilla, a long story largely based around a conversation between said doctor and two pilots who have just landed in the village setting. Themes are fine in a novel, but on running themes in a short story collection is something else. Each story is supposed to be a small novel, and individual universe. When you see this many themes running through a collection you start to get the feeling that this Thom Jones is a bit of a one trick pony. Again the reason the first story is so good is because it sets this tone, while the rest of them just rehash it.
Quicksand – this story is about an advertisement writer working for charity named “Ad Magic” who is stuck at a hotel somewhere in the congo with intestinal problems. Starting with this story and progressing for the rest of the book, the writing takes on a more and more lowbrow language. This story also features a very inappropriate sex scene (with regards to the context of the story), which I must say he does not write well. This is the longest story in the collection. The one thing it does have going for it is it seems to be reminiscent of David Foster Wallace’s “Westward.”
Pickpocket – the shortest story of the collection, and one of only 2 stories that does not have anything to do with Africa. There is disease though (diabetes), smoking (being the cause of the narrator losing his legs), and cars (a Saab). True to its title, the story is about a pickpocket, and a pretty good, it was refreshing to see something a little different.
Ooh Baby Baby – a story about a doctor who has returned from Africa, who is suffering from impotence caused by diabetes. It starts off with him driving around hard in his Porsche, and not really worth reading at this point. This is probably the low point of the whole collection, the rest of the stories get better after this.
Rocketfire Red – the other of the two stories that does not have anything to do with Africa, but it deals heavily with cars as it’s about an Australian surfer girl who gets involved with a drag racing group. It’s not bad, but it’s written with a strong Australian dialect, using alternative spelling to get the accent across, which adds to the difficulty in reading it.
I Need a Man to Love Me – this story is about a handicap woman struggling to live on her own and her recently out of jail quazi-boyfriend. I would put this down as the second best in the collection, though very heavy. I prefer its original title “Nights in White Satin” over the one that was used in the book.
Pot Shack – a story about marines in training before they leave for Vietnam, the main character is forced to endure mess hall duty for a full month for some mouthing off incident with a superior, trying to explain how he deserves privileges because of an upcoming boxing match (boxing appears in 3 of these stories). The story is okay, but the language is very lowbrow.
Dynamite Hands – a story about a boxer and his big fight, kind of reminds me of Hemingway’s “Fifty Grand.” Not too bad, but again lowbrow and also fairly difficult to follow with all the characters.
I may not have loved the collection, but I will be reading his other two at some point in the near future. Half the stories are pretty good at least.
November 20, 2020
Decent recommendation of Palahniuk. Snappy, interesting stories, variety of tones.
April 4, 2021
The fakest shit I've ever read. But if you like forced humor and cartoon characters tossing out mile-a-minute (dim)witticisms, then this is the sorry-ass story collection for you.
December 11, 2022
This wasn't really Writing that grabbed me
May 25, 2025
Makes me cry, maybe my favorite ever short story
October 9, 2023
Thom Jones (NOT the singer!) did not have an easy life. He suffered from epilepsy and diabetes, and his dad committed suicide in an institution. Jones also spent years working as a janitor, which I'm sure was often a thankless task. From this background he produced some amazing, excellent stories - a few of which are regarded as all-time classic works and have been anthologized multiple times. This is his second published collection and its wonderful. It's not a long collection and his fiction flows, so you'll likely finish it in a day or two. For my money, he's among the top five of all modern story writers. It's just a darn shame he never reaped the financial rewards and popular acclaim that so many lesser writers enjoys. (I'm looking at YOU James Patterson and Janet Evanovich.) Then again, I suppose story writers just don't get all the press that novelists receive.
December 28, 2008
In Cold Snap, Tom Jones's themes are pretty limited: doctors, africa, diabetes, drugs, petty crime, boxing. That seems like quite the variety until you discover every story recycles two or three of these themes, without said reconfigurations adding any deeper appreciation of the themes he is beating to death.
I loved his story "I want to Live" which I believe appeared in his previous collection, but here nothing to impress me. Characters often felt 2-dimensional, and even the nuances of "saving lives in Africa" got boring with one disillusioned doctor after another.
Things it would seem that you are supposed to learn from Cold Snap: doctors are assholes, escapism (particularly the brightly-colored capsule kind) is a perfectly acceptable way of living your life, and boxing is cool.
There was nothing so horrid about this stories other than the painful lack of anything that even measures up to "I Want to Live." I know people love him. And I will give the man credit for his knack for natural first-person narrative and dialogue, that totally fits the characters whose stories he's telling. It's just that those characters got boring real quick
I loved his story "I want to Live" which I believe appeared in his previous collection, but here nothing to impress me. Characters often felt 2-dimensional, and even the nuances of "saving lives in Africa" got boring with one disillusioned doctor after another.
Things it would seem that you are supposed to learn from Cold Snap: doctors are assholes, escapism (particularly the brightly-colored capsule kind) is a perfectly acceptable way of living your life, and boxing is cool.
There was nothing so horrid about this stories other than the painful lack of anything that even measures up to "I Want to Live." I know people love him. And I will give the man credit for his knack for natural first-person narrative and dialogue, that totally fits the characters whose stories he's telling. It's just that those characters got boring real quick
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