Knucklehead

by Matt Lennox

Ashley Rosco works as a bouncer at the only nightclub in a small town, spending his off-hours training as a bodybuilder. He occasionally acts as muscle for his best friend, Darren, a small-time drug dealer whose business is growing under the influence of his criminal father. Darren’s girlfriend, Chass, short for Chastity, has had her own problems with drugs, and has lost custody of her young daughter. For years, Chass made money by picking produce alongside migrant workers, known locally, derisively, as Amigos. Both Darren and Chass have been acting strangely, tense and jittery, but things really change when Ash gets a call from Chass on a bad connection, asking for his help. Chass is Ash’s cousin—and, as we discover, the secret love of his life. Chass disappears the next day, and Ash can’t shake the feeling that something has gone terribly wrong. Knucklehead is a riveting, powerful crime novel about fathers and sons, the limits of friendship, and the terrible, necessary choices we make.

Genres: Mystery, Canada, Fiction, Crime

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 2015

About the author

Matt Lennox is a Captain in the Canadian Forces Army Reserves, and was stationed in Kandahar between 2008 and 2009. He wrote many of the stories in his first collection, Men of Salt, Men of Earth, published by Oberon in 2009, while there. The collection was shortlisted for the 2010 ReLit award, and the title story was published in Best Canadian Stories in 2006. He is currently in his second year of an MFA at Guelph-Humber.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ya know, bro, like, this book was, okay. Ya get it? Alright. (Can you stand that writing? Get used to it. Then remove a bunch of punctuation you may be expecting.)

You're definitely forewarned by the title of what you're going to get. The book is about a bouncer dude who writes out his story about getting into all kinds of shenanigans and nastiness. There's booze, drugs, sex and violence. The book isn't really my thing, but I didn't hate it. It wasn't difficult to read or finish.

I picked up this book with very little knowledge, just because it has been longlisted for the 2017 Canada Reads. The Canada Reads shortlist will be based on "finding the next book that all Canadians need to read." I can't say I'd get behind this book for that theme. I DON'T think that this is that book. But it was a change of style for me, and that's a main reason I love Canada Reads so much!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A far more accessible (and much stranger) effort than The Carpenter. Knucklehead breathes where it should breathe and clenches where it should clench. It's ickily sexual in places where it perhaps really shouldn't be, and small-town dark throughout in a powerful way that more Canadian books should turn their eye to. This is not particularly easy CanLit, and thank god for that. Read this for themes of body dysmorphia (male, which falls into the less-written-about category of bigorexia), incest (a universal taboo expanded upon) and what delineates right and wrong when everyone seems to be just a little bit rotten at the core.

[Harry Junior · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mixed bag for me, and mostly problematic. The characters and their dialogue read like caricatures - a departure from Lennox's first novel (The Carpenter). He had better success with his female characters, to his credit. They seemed more nuanced.

The narrative was gritty, bleak, and I liked the idea of a macho male character trying to come to understand his place in the world outside of that toxicity. But it didn't ring true. Not in any meaningful way.

In terms of writing, if I placed this side-by-side with The Carpenter, I would have guessed this was his first novel.

[Nicole Winters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up last year at the International Festival of Authors after hearing Matt read a passage. I didn't know anything else about the story, just what I heard.
I bought it
I read it.
I loved it.
Loved the hero's voice and the execution of prose so much I got sucked into reading a noir-style mystery, something this YA and Horror fan doesn't normally read.

Matt's got some mad writing skills and I'll definitely be checking out his other works.

[Emily Gillespie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a random pick at the library. I found it surprisingly enjoyable. I liked the narrators honesty about his internal struggle. I particularly enjoyed the exploration of working through homophobia. This was a good exploration of friendships and challenges that emerge. I also enjoyed the Ontario settings.

[Les Marston · Rating 2 out of 5]

I abandoned this book. I had just finished Eden Robinson's, Son of a Trickster, which I loved. Maybe I will try this one again at a later date. Ms. Robinson's characters were so real I guess was spoiled.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never know if I should round up or round down but I give this book a 7/10. Fun read for it's genre.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story. Engaging characters, great pace.

[Wanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A peak into a world to which I've not had much exposure.

[Lester · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story..liked the writing style. This story will 'hit home' with so many people..like a slam in the head!!
Could well be a non-fiction..called fiction.
Thankx Matt Lennox...hope that you didn't write this having it happen really close up and personal. BUT..if you did..thank you even more!

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll admit I was skeptical when I started this book. It's the second out of my eight picks from the Canada Reads 2017 longlist. The first one I read, Fifteen Dogs, was a bit of a bust in my opinion, and Knucklehead by Matt Lennox didn't seem to be the kind of book I would normally read.

But once I got into it, Knucklehead started to grow on me. The book tells the story of Ashley Rosco, a small-town meathead kind of guy who works as a bouncer at the local bar and enters body-building competitions in his spare time. He's in love with his cousin, who also happens to be dating his unsavoury friend Darren.

The whole novel is almost like a stream of consciousness from Ashley's point of view. At first, I found it difficult to get used to the complete absence of any punctuation on the dialog. It was difficult at times to tell the difference between what Ashley was saying out loud and what he was thinking to himself in his head. But after a while I could see that it was kind of clever. Ashley is often kind of confused. He's slowly piecing together what his friends are up to, his love-interest cousin has gone missing, and at the same time he's trying to find his own place in the world and in his family.

I thought it was nice to see a guy being obsessed with his body in a novel, instead of a woman. Maybe it's because I tend to gravitate towards books with female protagonists, but it seems like there are a lot more women who are fixated on their looks in the books I read than men. In this story, Ashley is often weighing himself and critiquing his figure in front of the mirror. He seems to do this even more so when he's feeling bad or apprehensive about something else, which I also found interesting.

I also found that this book presented characters and a theme that I knew absolutely nothing about in a really accessible way. I don't know any guys like Ashley, but it was great to get into his head and see that some of the ways he thinks are not that different to the ways I think (although some of them are quite different too). Then there was the theme of the drug trafficking and addictions. Again, I don't really know anything at all about this topic, but it didn't turn me away from this book.

To sum it up, I did enjoy reading this book. There was a real nail-biting scene near the end that had me turning pages and continuing to read on my way up the escalators when I got off the subway. But do I think this book is worthy of the Canada Reads theme "What is the one book Canada needs now?" No. I think it's an intriguing story, but I'd be surprised if this one made it to the shortlist.

The next title on my list of picks for Canada Reads 2017 is Quantum Night by Robert J Sawyer. Review coming soon.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed the writing style - a realistic, modern noir. It took me a while to feel engaged with the plot, but the final chapters were hard to put down. I enjoyed the view of small-town Canada, but the word 'bro' was getting on my nerves by the the end.

[Anthony Rieder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't really think I'd wind up as gripped into this as I did. There were times, bro, when I could not put this book down.

Seriously, I loved the diction, loved the main character and the way he transcribed some of the little things that really hit home. The story and characters felt totally plausible. Really excellent.

[Krista Nolan]

This was a bookclub selection. Really quite liked the small town Ontario/Canada setting. The story was well told. If you are looking for some good Canadian writing here it is.

[Robert Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. The book initially is quite badly written and either I got used to it or it got better. It was neither as bad as it could have been nor as good as the blurbs.
Addressing the reader as Bro throughout was perhaps a mistake, as was having a few characters not be able to remember words and then remembering them, which unfortunately reminded me of the old SNL 'I hate when that happens' Billy Crystal skit.

[Lee Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got the long-list of Canada Reads and decided to go with Knuckle Head by Matt Lennox. Have never read anything of his before and this was a treat.
Rather gritty story of a young man who grew up in a typical small Canadian town, his best friends in childhood, and how their friendship develops and changes now they are all young adults.
The main character works as a bouncer at the local bar and works out religiously, all the while battling doubts about his past, his family, and his friends. He has an awkward, secret crush on his cousin, who is dating his best friend. He is very self-conscious and sensitive but lives up to the "tough-guy" image that he has carefully cultivated.
Toss in the fact that his father was estranged from the family when he was young and his best friend's dad is a hustler and major drug dealer and watch the plot thicken. Then things begin to heat up when his cousin goes missing and he has to face his fears and discover just how tough he really is and what family means.
This author draws you in from the first page and you really cannot put the book down. Told in the first person in a very realistic way - the way you would expect someone who grew up in a small town, hated school and works as a "security guard" would talk - and think.
No big words, easy read and high interest. This would make a very interesting movie!! I give it a big thumbs up.

[Sherry Monger · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Knucklehead is a novel that I wouldn't have read if it hadn't been long listed for this year's Canada Reads. It's a hard hitting, gritty novel about life in small town Ontario. Ashley is a big guy, with a tender heart even though he bounces for the one bar in town. The only activities around are the ones that get you into trouble and Ashley has seen plenty of that. His best friend Darren is now a drug pusher, Darren's Dad is playing with the bigger boys and Chastity, Ashley's cousin gets caught up in the trade too.
Ashley marvels how the choices you make at critical points in your life lead to the mess you find yourself in now. I came to really root for this guy as he tries to navigate the explosive path from adolescence to adulthood.

[Christopher Shulgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book set in a fictional town in southwestern Ontario. Ashley Rosco has an interesting life. The characters in the book are complex and real enough that they could have been based on guys I knew from high school. At its root the central narrative is a coming of age story set against the backdrop of small town crime. I'll be sure to look for more books from Matt Lennox.

[Barth Siemens · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book because it was on the Canada Reads longlist for 2017. The theme—why, themes—was something like: the book that all Canada should read. While I only read through to the end of chapter three, I don't think this is that.

By the by, it did not make the shortlist.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like this book a lot. The coming of age male thing with bad boy behaviours and reawakening, but in a very macho way. It's just not something that appeals to me. I read this because it was long-listed for something (Giller? Canada Reads?), but didn't get picked. So I read it, but forced myself to read the whole thing.

And so it ENDS.
"My eyes are starting to sting. The old me, bro, this is the part where the old me would've wanted to give my face a slap, say, Weakness. But it was never really the right word, was it? Never even the right idea. I say, Okay. Okay.
Chastity moves close to me. This time we do hug. I feels like a full minute we're together, but it isn't near long enough. She kisses me on the cheek. As we pull apart I see her glance at something. I look. She's left a little bit of makeup, foundation or whatever, on my shirt, close to my collar.
She says, Sorry about that. It'll come out.
I say, Chass, I love you.
She says, I love you too, Ashley. I guess I'll see you around, okay?
She takes a few backwards steps and then turns around. I watch her go, leading her daughter by the hand. The stinging in my eye is worse. Everything I see is double. I watch them make their way up to Glenna's minivan. Before they get into it, Chastity doesn't look back at me but Nevaeh does. She waves. I wave back. Then the two of them are in the van, and a second later they're gone.
My dad's truck pulls up beside me, but for a little while I don't move, I don't even look. I stand there with the whole thing playing over and over in my head. Every part of it. Everything that happened, bro, every fucking choice that was made.
I stand there at the edge of the park where one time, way back when, me and my best buddy and the girl I loved did an act of minor arson. Funny, it isn't the fire that comes clearest to me now. It's those black cats exploding, bang bang bang. The little red flashes in the dark grass.
It'd take it all back, do it over again. Do it different. No I wouldn't. I wouldn't do anything different. I wouldn't know how to. It's not on me. It's all on me. It's both things at the same time, because that's exactly how life fucks with your head.
I hear my dad beside me. Son, he says.
I don't really trust my voice, but I manage to say, Yeah?
It's all gonna be okay, you know.
Okay.
Come on, son. I'll take you home now."

Thus it BEGINS.
"This one time when we were kids, me and Darren and Chass did some minor arson. It was the first legit knucklehead thing I remember doing. The first thing that could've had consequences attached to it. Consequences in the legal sense, you know? Like possibly a record or probation or community service. But we never got caught, and we never told anybody.
WE WERE ALL TWELVE AT THE TIME, HALF THE AGE I AM now. ..."