The Laughter of Strangers

by Michael J. Seidlinger

'SUGAR' WILLEM FLOURES

That's a name I built from the ground up. I wasn't the first to systematically climb the ranks, beating the sugar out of everyone I had known to be inferior, leaving only the sour taste of defeat, my claim forever being:

"I am the greatest!"

I can still hear it now. In the silence of this locker room, blood drying on my face, I can still hear those words.

And I was. I was the greatest.

JAB

LEFT HOOK

JAB

LEFT HOOK

RIGHT HOOK

JAB

STRAIGHT

TO THE BODY:

JAB

JAB

POWER SHOT STRAIGHT

POWER SHOT STRAIGHT

UPPERCUT

And then a voice says, "'Sugar'... you are no longer sweet with the science."

Genres: Fiction

268 pages, Paperback

First published November 24, 2013

About the author

MICHAEL J. SEIDLINGER is the Filipino American author of The Body Harvest, Anybody Home?, and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, Thrillist, Goodreads, The Observer, Polygon, The Believer, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writer's Conference, and Sarah Lawrence. You can find him at michaeljseidlinger.com.

Reviews

[Michael Seidlinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author gives 5 stars to his own book AKA going twelve rounds with self-indulgence.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally rated this one four stars and let it mellow in my mind before writing a review. I'm glad I did, because it gave me time to reflect on why Laughter of Strangers is actually a five star masterpiece.

See, the first hundred pages or so are *almost* a traditional narrative, where "Sugar" Willem Floures and his trainer, Spencer, struggle with the aging fighter archetype, the stark realization that time is running out for their livelihood and, in response, cook up a publicity stunt where Willem admits to murdering someone in a blackout induced rage. Only it didn't really happen, hence the term 'publicity stunt'.

The book had me on this hook alone. Then, it deviated into an identity crisis, or at least I thought it deviated as Floures did battle inside his mind with one version of himself after another. Indeed, I felt something was lost initially with this slide into existential white noise, until the gravity of these words truly sunk in: "You can be whatever you want to be. You can change whatever you want to change."

"Sugar" Willem Floures is a guy you feel sorry for, not in the same way that one roots for the underdog Rocky Balboa. Where Rocky was a never was, Willem is a guy who was on top for several decades, smashing every contender and tomato can (boxing slang) thrown his way. He had his time, and he's having trouble letting go.

Cameron Pierce was right to call this the weirdest boxing novel ever written. But Michael Seidlinger managed to siphon some genuine soul from himself into this work, and he should be commended for it.

[DuVay Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an ex-boxer, I felt this book of 12 rounds of rumbling in the mental psychoses of WILLEM FLOURES, a onetime wunderkind now aging pugilist. We come to meet him as he is losing his abilities (the always present worry of every boxer) in the ring/taking unnecessary punches/losing the motivation to train. In short, he is fast turning into a HAS-BEEN. So the novel reads like a poetic Diary of his thoughts n musings. Almost reads like a fight itself: jabbing prose, floating negative experiences like a bee. Doubts n worries come against the brutality of a sport that maybe/oughta be BANNED for real. Butt FLOURES has survived it for decades. And now has just lost an important fight to another up n comer as the book opens. Signaling the End. And this is a problem because its an END he is not ready for. What boxer ever is (Sugar Ray Robinson & Leonard and Ali .... the list is long ... all who stayed one punch too long in the ring). In fact, Floures is named SUGAR WILLEM FLOURES in the tradition of the SWEET boxing SCIENCE of those other legendary SUGARS. Because he was OH SO SWEET wit his Southpaw punches once. Now his MIND/MEMORY is going. Or is it. Hard to tell for him sometimes. Floures knows one thing for sertain: he doesn't wannabe LAUGHED at by an audience full of STRANGERS who show up for Blood. He feels that existential crisis to his bones. Yet he can't bring himself to admit it's over for him. He doesn't have it anymore. Butt what would he be without SELF PITY, huh? As Floures says himself: "I dont make sense as a Fighter." This novel is also a social commentary on the sport itself: how its filled wit LIES to promote (peep the plan Floures and his Manager SPENCER devise to hype the rematch wit X), the CHEATING/BOUGHT Judges. Years ago this joint may have been in the pages of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED written by GEORGE PLIMPTON or NORMAN MAILER--hell, or even HUNTER S. THOMPSON. It feels GONZO in some respects. BOXING NOIR comes to mind as well. Its a Raw/Brutal insider look at a MAN who once WAS and is now no longer IS and the Desperation he feels as it all seems to be slipping away like a DUCKED BLOW. Read this potent/powerful book by MICHAEL SEIDLINGER!! The DECISION is in your hands.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a novel written for the masses. Starts as an existential boxing story and swerves into Beckettian territory midway through. In fact, if you've read Beckett's The Unnamable and survived it, you're most likely to love this novel like I do because it's written in an easier language and uses boxing as a way to anchor itself unlike Beckett who takes a deep dive into complete abstraction.

THE LAUGHTER OF STRANGERS is as much a novel about identity as it is about boxing. It spoke to me particularly loud because I don't have any cultural or racial anchors to my identity either being a straight white man from a Catholic upbringing, you know? If I claim any of this as my heritage of any of this, it pretty much makes me a neo-nazi. I've boxed for several years and understand the troublesome relationship of identifying to something that destroys you. It's very well illustrated by Michael Seidlinger.

I wouldn't recommend this book to everybody, but it'll find its way to you if you're meant to read it.

[Grant Wamack · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Laughter of Strangers by Michael J. Seidlinger is a boxing novel published by Lazy Facist Press.

Now I will admit, I’ve never read Seidlinger and if you’re in the same boat, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. The novel revolves around Willem “Sugar” Floures, an aging boxer, who loses a match that shakes him to his very core. The plot follows him and his inner thoughts as he trains for the rematch. Most boxing movies end at the rematch and that’s about it. No, not this book.

Selidlinger drags through the reader headfirst into Floures frazzled psyche and world of doubts. This book is a thorough, heartfelt examination of identity and what it means to us. Floures steps into the ring to fight himself and solidify who he is. The problem is once he becomes unsure of who he is as a person and a fighter, his whole world begins to unravel.

The Laughter of Strangers is a harrowing account of one boxer’s descent from the spotlight, but also an emotional fight for identity and one of the best books of 2013.

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a darkness in this tantalizing novel, a noir underworld, or underbelly quality that is infused in the prose. To be honest, I was put off by the idea of a novel about boxing, and then reading the first five or ten pages, I was drawn in, then immediately HOOKED. The protagonist, William Flores, possibly past his prime, was floundering in relatable, yet also uncharted waters. There is an inherent structure to the work that mimics boxing, or a ring, and Seidlinger brilliantly displays his knack for the echoes that drive the fractured narrative forth: am I being laughed at? Who is laughing at me? These ghosts, or demons, weave the novel among the physical, the metaphysical, and the philosophical worlds. This is not an easy topic to write about, a protagonist who is losing his perspective, and Seidlinger does so admirably. He is an author to not only take notice, but I eagerly await his next release.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never been a boxing fan. I'm not sure I've ever even watched a boxing match in my life. However, I've read enough Seidlinger to know that this was going to be anything but a normal boxing novel. Not that I don't think boxing fans couldn't get into it, but the base concept of a universe where boxers fight different versions of themselves in order to who is going to be the ultimate representation of themselves is certainly not what an ordinary boxing fan would expect. Seidlinger is really on top of his game on this one. Possibly one of his most strangest works, this book is slippery, magnetic, and fascinating. It's a bit challenging to pin down, but I think you have to expect that when it's related by a character who is losing himself.

[Phoenix Rises · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Laughter of Strangers, written by Michael J. Seidlinger, is a tough book that zips, stings, and burns. The prose floats like a butterfly but the content stings like a bee. The staccato style of the language and writing contributes to an overall unease, an anxiety, a desperation, that permeates the entire text and can make the reader unnerved and uncomfortable, at the very least.

More, please.

But the narrative strategy is only the beginning. It seems that Mr. Seidlinger’s novel takes pleasure in dancing and flirting with psychosis and madness. It is the laughter that you hear. It is the laughter that you fear. It is the laughter that Sugar hears, the laughter that Sugar fears. The laughter of which, we wonder if it really even exists, or if it exists more as the paranoia of Sugar’s crushed and devastated mind. The laughter is often portrayed as troubling for Sugar, and the reader will find Sugar obsessing over and over again about this laughter, a representation and reflection of his slipping grip on reality.

What causes Sugar’s psychosis? What causes his mental instability? There are many causes. He is a burnt-out boxer; that would explain a few things, brain damage being one of them. I think it’s safe to make that assessment, due to the intensity of the language used, phrases such as “beating the s*** out of myself,” or the multiple references to violence and self-violence: clearly, something went wrong for this boxer.

Like things can go wrong with us at any moment.

You cannot expect a fairy tale with this narrator.

But other things contribute as well. Pressure need not always be a physical pressure, the pressure to always be the best can be just as crushing. The pressure of having to stay at the top, the pressure of the media, the pressure of trying to perfect your skill and talent, and to not incur the laughter of the strangers, your audience, people we should loathe but paradoxically look toward for some kind of nonexistent comfort … I think that could drive anyone insane, if they are put in that situation long enough. It represents the dangers of forced self-consciousness, how that resembles torture in some ways, no different from taking an uppercut, or a blow to the stomach.

I would describe this novel as an experimental psychological thriller with a touch of the speculative. The novel’s pacing is fast like a thriller, with deep immersion into the consciousness of the main character, cut apart only by the narrative structure and strategy, of interspersing “subtitles,” so to speak, among the actual flow of the text.

Aside from the structural originality of this experimental thriller, the novel’s structure with the subtitles also reinforces the theme of psychosis. There comes a point where it almost seems as if the subtitles are an extension of Sugar himself, of this I speaker, but the effect is that of a split discussion … it is that of schizophrenia.

This would make sense, when thinking about the novel’s obsession with the unstable self, the philosophical idea that there is no stable “I.” It is never perfectly clear whether characters like X are really real, or simply represent the fragmented self of Sugar. The novel pushes the philosophical unstable self, the unstable I, idea further, however, by focusing not on the instability of the “I” pronoun, but on the names themselves, such as Dynamite, and all those personalities imply. The way that Mr. Seidlinger weaves in the various personalities (or anti-personalities … or separate personalities?) is chilling and complicated, at the very least.

It takes a certain grit to write like this. It takes a certain rawness, but an understanding of what it means to truly experience pain but simultaneous determination. I myself am jealous of writers that can tackle something so … blood and guts. This book is not fine wine, this is undistilled vodka: capable of knocking you out in a single blow. While that in no way implies that this Metamodern work isn’t fine art, one would do well to praise this novel not on its attention to beauty as we traditionally define it, but beauty defined as a deep understanding of what pushes us over the brink, what drives us over the edge.

The answer that Seidlinger provides is not an easy one, or one that is easy to swallow. It seems that society itself, coupled with an uncontrollable internal drive, is what pushes us into self-destruction. The book asks seriously the following philosophical question: why is it in our nature to want to destroy ourselves, to run ourselves raw and ragged, before we’ve even fully grasped the significance of what it is we have done or want to do? Why do we, in Seidlinger’s words, want to beat the s*** out of ourselves? This almost seems to imply an unredeemable quality that drives the human species forward while simultaneously self-destructing. For people that struggle because they push themselves to their breaking point, whether pushing their mind beyond human endurance, or pushing their bodies beyond human endurance, like Sugar, this book will highly resonate. The book is in a sense a rough and raw manifesto on what it means to push yourself so hard that you literally collapse and fall apart, because you cannot take anymore. Amazingly, though, there is a kind of freedom and liberation that comes from this type of pressure, of pushing one’s boundaries (much the way Seidlinger’s narrative strategy pushes certain expectations of the novel or the thriller), that even though one of the conclusions of this book is highly troubling and disturbing (the idea that humans with an intense drive eventually push themselves toward self-destruction), it seems to be the only way that a fully realized human can truly live. This is one of the deepest existential concepts to come out of the novel. It isn’t just about how unstable the I self is, it is about the existential push, the drive, the determination, that exists in all of us, and whether or not we allow that to liberate us, or splinter us into factions of disconnected personality: essentially, an incomplete self.

In a beautiful turn of events, however, the novel ends with the biggest sucker punch of them all, what really liberates us: connection to the outside world, what we all crave, and the power of being appreciated for who you are, but gently, genuinely. I will not give the ending away, but it is a satisfying ending to a story that has run itself dog tired trying to please the audience

Read this book if you want a good clean punch to the head. If you want to understand the darkness and emptiness that is the human heart, but also the passion that burns within all of us, read this book. It is highly original, and in fact, I don’t know where to fit this book on the continuum of modern or even classic literature, because it is uniquely its own. That is of course always a good thing for an experimental novel. The closest relative to this novel is probably Burgess and his novel A Clockwork Orange, where both novels think seriously about violence. But while Burgess’s book is a scathing satire on the pointlessness of violence and our attraction to it, Seidlinger’s novel focuses more on the untamed and metaphysical violence that exists within, the violence that exists within your own soul, your own mind, and how that can either hurt or hinder you, depending on what you choose.

Indeed: read this book if you want to uncover the psychosis that can push you over the brink, to destabilize yourself and your personalities. To split you apart. Read it if you want to uncover the mysteries of raw passion, of brute force, and how it can seduce even the toughest fighter. The results are not always good, but you might finish with the ability to fight the best fight of your life … which can only come through sacrifice and perseverance.

Such a story can only come from a writer who has lived such a life, of determination and passion, and all the trouble that brings. I imagine Mr. Seidlinger would agree with this claim …

[Bud Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel just as much about boxing, as society, media, mental illness and the darkest aspects of the human psyche. The narrator Willem Floures is a fighter who may be past his prime, and floundering towards doomsday, but the real intrigue in the novel comes in the notion that Willem Floures isn't the only Willem Floures, there's impostors everywhere. A larger story is at play here than just a desire to be champion, remain champion or even just win another fight. As the narrator loses his grip on reality, the story becomes claustrophobic, but the skill of the author pushes the text forward, compellingly into an intriguing mix of gritty noir reality and lucid nightmare. Looking forward to more from the author.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is a knockout punch to the brain. It's a novel about a boxer who fights alternative versions of himself in order to stay relevant, and simultaneously an extended meditation on identity; ego; and the process of keeping all of things from collapsing in on themselves. It's the best of Seidlinger's published novels: an excercise in the intensity of a sustained voice. There's an element to it almost like a Greek chorus, commenting on and interpreting itself, except the chorus also emerges from within Seidlinger's voice.

Even though it's about boxing it's kind of not about boxing at all. And that's what makes it interesting.

[Brian Alan Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a claustrophobic, Dexter-like urgency in which Seidlinger uncoils Floures’s mind as though it’s an old battered and patched-up garden hose. There are delusions. The house in which he lives becomes a separate, breathing entity: “The house looks a lot like me.” There are bodies hanging in his gym, hungry and indignant. Voices in his head tell him he is no longer “sweet with the science.” And are these, in fact, multiple voices, or are they just different aspects of a singular voice? Basically, Floures’s mind is a spook house...

Read the rest of my review over at Sundog Lit:

http://sundoglitblog.wordpress.com/20...

[Tobias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boxing meets a meditation of identity reminiscent of Morrison and Weston's THE FILTH.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable one-of-a-kind boxing book about shifting identities. Review forthcoming.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great novel by a great man.

My interview with Michael at Monkeybicycle.

[D.G. Sutter · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Review originally appeared on The New Book Review: http://thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/...)

Undisputed Champion

What is the purpose of identity? It is to dignify the existence of human separation. We are all equally varied in characteristics and personalities. Like two snowflakes, none of us are the same, and unlike Tyler Durden’s philosophy we are all special. In The Laughter of Strangers, Michael Seidlinger challenges the concept of self by giving several faces and facets to the boxer who is, was, and always will be Willem Floures.

While identity is a feature set aside for others to differentiate, ego and self-esteem are internal machines to determine identity; the protagonist’s main struggle in the book is discovering the “true” Willem Floures through rigorous tests of both. Is it Sugar, Black Mamba, or Executioner? Seidlinger takes readers on an existentially vagrant journey through the stages of Floures’s life, using boxing matches as vibrant reveries of combat against actions and behaviors of past and present.

His prose is clean and concise and he wastes no breath in getting the story across, in passages such as “Looking back all I hear is laughter. All I see is white. All I taste is the ache of my bleeding mouth, tongue numb, my eyes wanting so very much to roll back, have a look at the inside of my broken skull.”

There are no extraneous details or descriptions to bore you out of your mind—no—merely conflict in the mind of a character on the path towards self-discovery, categorization, and personal revelation. If you’re looking for a read with a broad degree of settings and action, you will miss out a bit, but Seidlinger makes up for it with honest characters, ones that blend together likes the rounds do for a fighter.

As for my recommendation, I would say disappear into the crowd and try, for yourself, not to laugh as the world of Willem Floures crumbles, and thrives, on the southpawed boxer’s back. Be a spectator in his final fight for glory and gratification. Stand in his corner while he battles for inner supremacy and against the throes served by years of publicity. We are all looking for our place in the world, to be understood and find meaning. In the words of Willem Floures:

“You had to hurt yourself in order to be heard. You have to continue working, being productive, doing whatever it is that you do to maintain their attention. If no one pays attention to you, you aren’t really alive.”

The match starts now.

[Michael Allen Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so much more than a boxing novel. In some ways, it's more than a "novel" regardless of genre. While the narrative our hapless protagonist "Sugar" Willem Floures spins does indeed involve his boxing career, it's the methodology of the telling that truly makes The Laughter of Strangers glow with a unique and unsettling light.

The first half of the book is fairly straightforward, as we enter Sugar's mind as he prepares for a major title fight. Author Michael Seidlinger brilliantly cracks the walls of his protagonist's mind and allows us to see things from the inside. It's a first person telling, but disjointed, fragmented; a novel written the way people think more than the way they talk. In this way, the prose itself reads like poetry, and is an absolute delight. The chapters in which fights occur are particularly well stylized, as bits of text stand out from the rest like individual jabs, hooks and uppercuts.

Halfway through the book however, there is an abrupt shift after a major event occurs in the life of Willem Floures. Most of the time, when a reader encounters an unreliable narrator, it's due to some combination of tall-tale syndrome, guilt in the telling or nefarious plans, however in this case, it's a painful symptom of a lifetime of being literally beaten to death. Is this what brain damage reads like? What's real, what's hallucination, what's past, what's future; there's nothing clear from here on out, and we're forced to confront a strange and beautiful mind that is fraying as we read. An absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking book. Seidlinger has somehow pulled off a novel that reads like a well-executed fight, with bobs and weaves followed by powerful, masterful blows.

[Cory Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading The Laughter of Strangers was an entirely unique experience. The pacing and style of the prose had the effect of suspending my comprehension of time each time I sat down to read. The main character's struggle with identity and narrative memory connected on an immediate level with my own insecurities and confusions. I'm actually at a loss for words as how to exactly describe why this book connected with me. The act of reading the novel felt like a direct connection to Willem as his mind reeled and searched for focus and something concrete. That might sound like an obvious point, that I was connected to the main character, but this time it was different. There is an honesty and sincerity to this book that is as refreshing to the reader as it is horrifying to the protagonist. And although this story takes us down some dark corridors of self-doubt and insanity the simple fact that the narrative CONTINUES is a powerful 'light' to these dark pathways. In short, I loved it and found the last 2 chapters to be simply beautiful.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Likely the most complex boxing book ever written. "Sugar" Willem Floures is a boxer your heart goes out to. He had his time, and he's having trouble letting go. Being on top for several decades, smashing every contender and pretender thrown his way, he's having trouble letting go.

The first hundred pages or so are almost a traditional narrative, where "Sugar" and his trainer struggle with the aging fighter archetype, the stark realization that time is running out for their livelihood and, in response, cook up a publicity stunt where Willem admits to murdering someone in a blackout induced rage.

The book had me on this hook alone. Then, it deviated into an identity crisis as Floures battles inside his mind with one version of himself after another. Indeed, I felt something was lost initially with this slide into existential white noise.

Challenging, complex, a boxing memoir like no other.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book ostensibly about a boxer who, though once at the top of his game, is on his way out. Gritty noirish elements set the stage in the early going only to yield to an existential meditation on identity, the self and being. The author very carefully folds this pulp inspired genre piece in on itself, the effect being not unlike a mobius strip festooned with mirrors. Michael J. Seidlinger has given us the post-modern boxing novel and it is a gem.

[WILLIAM SMTH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book, very interesting, a good time investment.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Willem Floures is a has-been boxer nearing the end of his career. He's also an unreliable narrator describing his career, but with a fuzzy memory, and we get the sense that his sport has taken a toll on his brain. As things progress, it gets a little Fight Club-y up in here...