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Dogfight: And Other Stories
A collection of ten deeply insightful stories captures with psychological insight the pathos and small triumphs of everyday life, with its fumbling attempts at deeper human relations, disappointments, and moments of grace. Original.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
3 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Michael Knight
10 books13 followersMichael Knight is the author of the novels The Typist and Divining Rod, the short story collections Eveningland, Goodnight, Nobody, and Dogfight and Other Stories, and the book of novellas The Holiday Season. His novel, The Typist, was selected as a Best Book of the Year by The Huffington Post and The Kansas City Star, among other places, and appeared on Oprah’s Summer Reading List in 2011. His short stories have appeared in magazines and journals like The New Yorker, Oxford American, Paris Review and The Southern Review and have been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories, 2004 and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2009. Knight teaches creative writing at the University of Tennessee and lives in Knoxville with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
January 7, 2008
This was an incredibly well written, gripping book of short stories. In each, it was essentially just little slice of daily life, but Knight writes his characters and their motivations well. Actually, it had made me re-evaluate the types of short stories I enjoy. Highly recommended.
March 13, 2015
A good collection. I enjoyed most of the stories quite a bit, but did feel that many of the endings lacked something. Nonetheless, the journeys to those endings were well-written.
May 30, 2022
DOGFIGHT: AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Knight -- Having read and greatly enjoyed two of Knight's novels (THE TYPIST and DIVINING ROD), I thought I'd try this collection of 10 short stories, his first, most including a dog. Thinking about short story authors of the past (Ray Bradbury, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Herman Melville, O. Henry, Washington Irving, Mark Twain, so many others), it seems that even in the short story, as in the novel, there is often an ending, a conclusion that may bring the work to a satisfying finish. But these stories by Knight don't do that. They instead give us a glimpse of characters in their everyday living, relationships, loves, tragedies, successes, without any real summing up at the end. That is not a criticism, merely an observation of a different way of writing. I greatly appreciate Knight's writing skill. He's a great talent.
December 1, 2022
After reading the first story that contains the sentence; "If you don't date soon the clients will think you are gay and what will that do for the business?" and then skimming some of the other language choices in this book: such as a character known only as the Jap - I stopped. This isn't written well enough for me to get over the white male privileged narrative here. I do really love some other controversial male voices in literature but this doesn't have the talent, content, or whismy that warrants a pass for the toxic tortured artist trope.
March 4, 2018
I love this author - the first short story collection I read by him was ALABAMA. This collection was good too, although it is earlier writings, and you can see in comparison to new and old where Michael Knight is getting better and better. The Southern male writer is my new love (move over, Rick Bragg).
August 5, 2021
I’m certainly biased in rating this collection, but needless to say, it is quite excellent. Beautifully sharp prose and a mastery of narrative movement, such that I always felt I was going somewhere. My favorite stories include, “Now You See Her,” “Amelia Earhart’s Coat,” “A Bad Man, So Pretty,” and “Tenant.” A pleasure to read.
June 28, 2018
I admire the skill of a writer to balance humor with emotional realness. These stories will make you laugh and make you feel, maybe not in equal parts but what do I know? I left math a long time ago.
June 11, 2022
"Dogfight is saturated with longing. It consistently catches you off guard, reminding you how fragile and miraculous are the ties between people. These are stories you believe, written with a simple grace that remains with you."
--David Long
"Gerald's Monkey" and "Tenant" are the best.
--David Long
"Gerald's Monkey" and "Tenant" are the best.
February 18, 2020
Gorgeous writing that creates situations and people that instantly feel real. There was no getting up to speed. Truly an art.
October 7, 2020
Superb collection of short stories. Loved it. [4.5*]
August 12, 2025
Liked The Man who went Out for Cigarettes. Most stories were only almost good or working up to worth before their deadline
June 10, 2012
This review is from: Dogfight: And Other Stories (Paperback)
I've read just about everything Michael Knight has written, and have enjoyed his work immensely. This is his first story collection, originally published in 1998, but republished in 2007, with a new story, "Smash & Grab," replacing one ("Poker") in the original book. I had read his second collection, "Goodnight, Nobody" first. There was a marvelous story in that one titled "Blackout" that felt in the same vein as the Martin Scorcese movie, "After Hours," exploring craziness that happens after the sun sets on, in the story's case, a suburban neighborhood. This entire collection feels like an extension of that theme, as it looks all the social and familial dysfunction of residents and neighbors in the suburbs. Usually they're told through the eyes of men who haven't quite figured out what their relationships with woman should be, or even more simply, figured out women at all. All the stories are wonderfully told, with characters you can immediately relate and wonderful gifts for detail that make them and their worlds come alive on the page. All the stories are straightforward, realistic tales, so there's none of the surrealistic stuff that many writers feel obligated to add to collections to demonstrate their writing chops.
The 10 stories, mostly set in contemporary Alabama, in this version of the collection are:
1. Smash & Grab - 13 pp - When a robber breaks into a house, he unexpectedly finds a teenage girl, who has more than a few surprises in store for him. It's ultimately a very funny story about the complexities of familial relationships.
2. Now You See Her - 17 pp - A widower and his 13-year-old son both become obsessed with a beautiful women who lives next door and parades naked around her curtain-less apartment.
3. Dogfight - 19 pp - A wonderfully told mash-up of misery in the suburbs. It begins with a brutal dogfight, then one owner sleeps with the owner of the dog who had attacked his. The adulterer's ex-wife lives in the house behind his, and he finds himself getting close to her again when he shares the news of his affair. But when the cuckolded husband finds out, another vicious fight breaks out between the two men.
4. Gerald's Monkey - 18 pp - A young man works in his uncle's ship-building boatyard one summer and learns grim lessons about life from the welders he works alongside.
5. Sleeping with My Dog - 14 pp - A mosaic craftsmen becomes consumed with jealousy when his vivacious takes business trips with her lascivious boss.
6. Amelia Earhart's Coat - 15 pp - A 10-year-old girl worries that her father will run off with Amelia Earhart after she sees them exchange a kiss. (It's the one historical story in the collection with a setting out of Alabama, too, in this case, a rich estate in Rye, New York.)
7. A Bad Man, So Pretty - 21 pp - A 16-year-old boy lives in the shadow of his wild, violent other brother.
8. The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes - 8 pp - A man who works on a charter fishing boat struggles with the hardships of living with a wife who was crippled in a car accident.
9. Sundays -- 15 pp - Wiley is a single Latin teacher who lives in a cul de sac with a bunch of divorced, widowed, or unwed mothers and enjoys being the sole object of their flirtations. But when another male teacher gets invited to the neighborhood's routine Sunday night potluck dinners, with more on his mind than casual flirtation, Wiley has to question his connection to all these women and their children.
10. Tenant - 15 pp - A college professor lives as a tenant on a piece of land that was once a Southern plantation, while carrying on secret relationship with a student at the community college where he teaches who is four years older than he. His normal routine is disrupted when his 75-year-old landlord kills herself by burning the main house down, leaving a German shepherd who haunts the property, lost and lonely after its owner died.
I've read just about everything Michael Knight has written, and have enjoyed his work immensely. This is his first story collection, originally published in 1998, but republished in 2007, with a new story, "Smash & Grab," replacing one ("Poker") in the original book. I had read his second collection, "Goodnight, Nobody" first. There was a marvelous story in that one titled "Blackout" that felt in the same vein as the Martin Scorcese movie, "After Hours," exploring craziness that happens after the sun sets on, in the story's case, a suburban neighborhood. This entire collection feels like an extension of that theme, as it looks all the social and familial dysfunction of residents and neighbors in the suburbs. Usually they're told through the eyes of men who haven't quite figured out what their relationships with woman should be, or even more simply, figured out women at all. All the stories are wonderfully told, with characters you can immediately relate and wonderful gifts for detail that make them and their worlds come alive on the page. All the stories are straightforward, realistic tales, so there's none of the surrealistic stuff that many writers feel obligated to add to collections to demonstrate their writing chops.
The 10 stories, mostly set in contemporary Alabama, in this version of the collection are:
1. Smash & Grab - 13 pp - When a robber breaks into a house, he unexpectedly finds a teenage girl, who has more than a few surprises in store for him. It's ultimately a very funny story about the complexities of familial relationships.
2. Now You See Her - 17 pp - A widower and his 13-year-old son both become obsessed with a beautiful women who lives next door and parades naked around her curtain-less apartment.
3. Dogfight - 19 pp - A wonderfully told mash-up of misery in the suburbs. It begins with a brutal dogfight, then one owner sleeps with the owner of the dog who had attacked his. The adulterer's ex-wife lives in the house behind his, and he finds himself getting close to her again when he shares the news of his affair. But when the cuckolded husband finds out, another vicious fight breaks out between the two men.
4. Gerald's Monkey - 18 pp - A young man works in his uncle's ship-building boatyard one summer and learns grim lessons about life from the welders he works alongside.
5. Sleeping with My Dog - 14 pp - A mosaic craftsmen becomes consumed with jealousy when his vivacious takes business trips with her lascivious boss.
6. Amelia Earhart's Coat - 15 pp - A 10-year-old girl worries that her father will run off with Amelia Earhart after she sees them exchange a kiss. (It's the one historical story in the collection with a setting out of Alabama, too, in this case, a rich estate in Rye, New York.)
7. A Bad Man, So Pretty - 21 pp - A 16-year-old boy lives in the shadow of his wild, violent other brother.
8. The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes - 8 pp - A man who works on a charter fishing boat struggles with the hardships of living with a wife who was crippled in a car accident.
9. Sundays -- 15 pp - Wiley is a single Latin teacher who lives in a cul de sac with a bunch of divorced, widowed, or unwed mothers and enjoys being the sole object of their flirtations. But when another male teacher gets invited to the neighborhood's routine Sunday night potluck dinners, with more on his mind than casual flirtation, Wiley has to question his connection to all these women and their children.
10. Tenant - 15 pp - A college professor lives as a tenant on a piece of land that was once a Southern plantation, while carrying on secret relationship with a student at the community college where he teaches who is four years older than he. His normal routine is disrupted when his 75-year-old landlord kills herself by burning the main house down, leaving a German shepherd who haunts the property, lost and lonely after its owner died.
June 4, 2015
Blew through this collection of 10 stories by Michael Knight. He has an easy style and writes "slice of life" tales - just little vignettes into the lives of ordinary people. Maybe not the most ordinary of times in all cases, but just a snippet into their lives. Overall, I really enjoyed the collection. There's no question that Knight is remarkably talented. His dialogue and structure comes across so easily. And I literally read the entire book in two commutes - albeit, one of those being a two+ hour commute thanks to another horror at Penn Station.
I only have one complaint - with the exception of the last one, Knight's stories don't have endings. They just sort of end. Its a little weird. Its almost like he got up from his desk to get a cup of coffee and just didn't come back. To some degree, the stopping point in most of the stories seems thoroughly arbitrary. I believe there is a significance to the idea that life continues on …this is just a sliver of them. But it leaves the reader dangling a bit.
Overall…good stuff. Would read more of Knight.
So, Tuesday I met a buddy for dinner. I was a few minutes early and was walking past Book Off…figured I'd at least look. You never know what you might find. Wound up picking up two book for a $1 each (Three Men in a Boat was the other). That morning I had finished off the post-script stuff of Native Son. I had brought "In An Instant" with me to work as a next read. But, as NY is in a heat wave this week, thought a smaller/lighter option that the Hardcover In An Instant would make sense for the balance of the week. I had no idea I'd read it so quickly. Score a point for Book Off.
I only have one complaint - with the exception of the last one, Knight's stories don't have endings. They just sort of end. Its a little weird. Its almost like he got up from his desk to get a cup of coffee and just didn't come back. To some degree, the stopping point in most of the stories seems thoroughly arbitrary. I believe there is a significance to the idea that life continues on …this is just a sliver of them. But it leaves the reader dangling a bit.
Overall…good stuff. Would read more of Knight.
So, Tuesday I met a buddy for dinner. I was a few minutes early and was walking past Book Off…figured I'd at least look. You never know what you might find. Wound up picking up two book for a $1 each (Three Men in a Boat was the other). That morning I had finished off the post-script stuff of Native Son. I had brought "In An Instant" with me to work as a next read. But, as NY is in a heat wave this week, thought a smaller/lighter option that the Hardcover In An Instant would make sense for the balance of the week. I had no idea I'd read it so quickly. Score a point for Book Off.
May 21, 2019
Will definitely be picking up more Michael Knight. This is a slow-burn collection of stories that I wasn’t sure about at first, but many have stuck with me long after finishing.
November 13, 2014
I had the awesome privilege of meeting Michael Knight and hearing him read one of the featured stories from Dogfight, “Smash and Grab”, at the Auburn Writers Conference. His reading certainly grabbed my attention and this collection of short stories only worked to keep my attention. Knight has a great way of telling stories, of interweaving past and present, of building this totally unique and wonderful world in such a condensed space. If anything, I would say the only flaw for me came across in voice, particularly those of the seemingly middle aged male character—they all seemed to blend into one. I still enjoyed the stories, though; each one like opening up a small window and looking in on a small truth of life, leaving it just barely cracked open as I left. I can't wait to read more collections from him.
January 7, 2016
This collection of short stories was disappointing, not to the point where I wouldn't give Michael Knight another try, but I'll definitely hesitate. I rarely read contemporary literary fiction and this book reminded me why. Almost none of these slice of life stories – "Gerald's Monkey" was different "The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes came close – had satisfying ends. I thought the opening to "Now You See Her," and "Amelia Earhart's Coat" were quite good, but for the most part the prose was rather awkward, the characters unconvincing, their dialogue bizarre, and the stories themselves without much tension. I'd like to give one of his novels to try to see if his writing style is better in that medium.
May 25, 2015
A collection of charming short stories about sort of ordinary people and their relationships with each other (and, in some stories, with their pets). It was difficult to decide at the end of the story Dogfight who exactly the dog was! Well-written and interesting descriptions of lives.
Food: This is an iced-tea sort of book. Or maybe some cut-up watermelon chunks. I suggest you avoid anything spicy or exotic because it would just be incompatible with the reading-eating parallel activity.
Food: This is an iced-tea sort of book. Or maybe some cut-up watermelon chunks. I suggest you avoid anything spicy or exotic because it would just be incompatible with the reading-eating parallel activity.
November 25, 2008
I liked this compilation of shorts but what I really remember was I bought this book after I attended one of the author's book readings in Roanoke, VA. Very interesting and engaging man. Watching him read his own words, at one point he got choked up a bit, was a great experience. He seemed to be a genuine person.
October 23, 2014
I loved meeting Knight in person at the Auburn Writers Conference and this book of short stories is great. I like how his prose isn't overly snooty or literary -- it's straightforward. But he still manages to say marvelous things about life with it.
April 13, 2016
I had forgotten how wonderful short stories can be. This is an eclectic but wonderful collection; unlike many short story collections I've read, all the stories are strong, which makes for a great read.
December 7, 2010
See my blog for my review: http://thestoryisthecure.blogspot.com/
October 26, 2012
There is so much dimension to these stories. Knight has a knack for capturing real life in such a vivid way. Strong collection.
April 2, 2013
Excellent compilation of short stories. Memorable scenes and imagery. A top American talent whose style reminds me of David Mitchell.
February 26, 2010
Loved the short stories and had a major crush-Michael Knight was my teacher.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews