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Grimmish
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD
Pain was Joe Grim’s self-expression, his livelihood and reason for being. A superstar boxer who rarely won a fight, Grim distinguished himself for his extraordinary ability to withstand physical punishment. In this wild and expansive novel, Michael Winkler moves between the present day and Grim’s 1908–09 tour of Australia, bending genres and histories into a kaleidoscopic investigation of pain, masculinity, and narrative. Pain is often said to defy the limits of language. And yet Grimmish suggests that pain – physical and mental – is also the most familiar and universal human condition; and, perhaps, the secret source of our impulse to tell stories.
“A powerful blast of literary ingenuity and originality.” – Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip " Grimmish meets a need I didn't even know I had. I lurched between bursts of wild laughter, shudders of horror, and gasps of awe at Winkler’s verbal the freshness and muscle of his verbs, the unstoppable flow of his images, the bizarre wit of the language of pugilism—and all the while, a moving subterranean glint of strange masculine tenderness." – Helen Garner
“All the makings of a cult classic. It’s grotesque and gorgeous, smart and searching.” – Beejay Silcox, The Guardian
Pain was Joe Grim’s self-expression, his livelihood and reason for being. A superstar boxer who rarely won a fight, Grim distinguished himself for his extraordinary ability to withstand physical punishment. In this wild and expansive novel, Michael Winkler moves between the present day and Grim’s 1908–09 tour of Australia, bending genres and histories into a kaleidoscopic investigation of pain, masculinity, and narrative. Pain is often said to defy the limits of language. And yet Grimmish suggests that pain – physical and mental – is also the most familiar and universal human condition; and, perhaps, the secret source of our impulse to tell stories.
“A powerful blast of literary ingenuity and originality.” – Lloyd Jones, author of Mister Pip " Grimmish meets a need I didn't even know I had. I lurched between bursts of wild laughter, shudders of horror, and gasps of awe at Winkler’s verbal the freshness and muscle of his verbs, the unstoppable flow of his images, the bizarre wit of the language of pugilism—and all the while, a moving subterranean glint of strange masculine tenderness." – Helen Garner
“All the makings of a cult classic. It’s grotesque and gorgeous, smart and searching.” – Beejay Silcox, The Guardian
224 pages, Paperback
Published April 25, 2023
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December 23, 2023
June 2023 Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month
An "exploded non-fiction novel" originally self-published in Australia, and shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. In the UK, via my favourite literary agent Martin Shaw, it's published by Peninsula Press - their Sterling Karat Gold was the most exciting literary novel of 2021 and this may well take the crown for 2023.
In the novel's own words:
Pessoa's peculiar meisterwork is one of the disparate sources ransacked by Michael Winkler in Grimmish. A book ostensibly about the hapless Italian-American boxer Joe Grim's visit to Australia in 1908-09, Grimmish spirals into knottier regions including motivations behind the author's attraction to the Grim story, problems of fictionalized history, how a contemporary writer handles gap-riddled historical narratives, and most of all the rich realm of pain.
Overarching Winkler's peregrinations is the question of authenticity; and the impossibility that this presentation of Grim will bear much or any connection to the flesh-and-blood fighter Joe Grim. How pale is this simulacrum? How faint the whisper?
There is no narrative arc, close to zero love interest, skittish occasional action, incident rather than plot, and a narrator who is intermittently compelling but prevaricates and self-deludes like a broody prince at Elsinore. Winkler lards proceedings with asides that are intermittently useful and sometimes distracting. He revels in the construction of deliberately rickety storytelling structures, and enjoys a little too much the stunt of toppling his mouthpieces into knowingly unrealistic dialogue. Is anything profound said about Australia, or about manhood, or about individuals who choose a little- travelled path, and that ostensibly strange life choices can provide an existence as valid as an other? Yes, conceivably. Has the pain things been rung for every last drop? Probably and possibly a few too many drops more.
Oh and there are 97 erudite footnotes plus a wise-cracking foul-mouthed goat whose jokes include the one from my favourite mug:
The Miles Franklin citation:
Grimmish is based on the true story of a boxer named Joe Grim — a terrible boxer who somehow managed to sustain a professional career in the early twentieth century solely on the basis of his ability to take a savage beating without falling over. Around the historical tale of Grim’s unusual career, Michael Winker has crafted an equally unusual novel that is by turns playful, funny, heartfelt and deeply reflective. Interweaving comical and philosophical passages with the tall tales told by the narrator’s drunk “uncle” (one of which features a foul-mouthed talking goat), Grimmish sets out to anatomise the phenomenon of physical pain in mock-scholarly fashion. In doing so, it gently disentangles the ugly knot of violence and self-destructiveness at the heart of masculinity. Winker approaches his subject with keen eye for life’s absurdity, grotesquery and tragedy. The novel’s metafictional dimension — it begins with a “review” of itself — is deployed to great effect, the ironies of its formal self-consciousness acting as cover for its underlying sincerity and its distinct note of melancholy. Daring and hilarious, Grimmish is a uniquely witty and original contribution to Australian literature
An "exploded non-fiction novel" originally self-published in Australia, and shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. In the UK, via my favourite literary agent Martin Shaw, it's published by Peninsula Press - their Sterling Karat Gold was the most exciting literary novel of 2021 and this may well take the crown for 2023.
In the novel's own words:
Pessoa's peculiar meisterwork is one of the disparate sources ransacked by Michael Winkler in Grimmish. A book ostensibly about the hapless Italian-American boxer Joe Grim's visit to Australia in 1908-09, Grimmish spirals into knottier regions including motivations behind the author's attraction to the Grim story, problems of fictionalized history, how a contemporary writer handles gap-riddled historical narratives, and most of all the rich realm of pain.
Overarching Winkler's peregrinations is the question of authenticity; and the impossibility that this presentation of Grim will bear much or any connection to the flesh-and-blood fighter Joe Grim. How pale is this simulacrum? How faint the whisper?
There is no narrative arc, close to zero love interest, skittish occasional action, incident rather than plot, and a narrator who is intermittently compelling but prevaricates and self-deludes like a broody prince at Elsinore. Winkler lards proceedings with asides that are intermittently useful and sometimes distracting. He revels in the construction of deliberately rickety storytelling structures, and enjoys a little too much the stunt of toppling his mouthpieces into knowingly unrealistic dialogue. Is anything profound said about Australia, or about manhood, or about individuals who choose a little- travelled path, and that ostensibly strange life choices can provide an existence as valid as an other? Yes, conceivably. Has the pain things been rung for every last drop? Probably and possibly a few too many drops more.
Oh and there are 97 erudite footnotes plus a wise-cracking foul-mouthed goat whose jokes include the one from my favourite mug:
The Miles Franklin citation:
Grimmish is based on the true story of a boxer named Joe Grim — a terrible boxer who somehow managed to sustain a professional career in the early twentieth century solely on the basis of his ability to take a savage beating without falling over. Around the historical tale of Grim’s unusual career, Michael Winker has crafted an equally unusual novel that is by turns playful, funny, heartfelt and deeply reflective. Interweaving comical and philosophical passages with the tall tales told by the narrator’s drunk “uncle” (one of which features a foul-mouthed talking goat), Grimmish sets out to anatomise the phenomenon of physical pain in mock-scholarly fashion. In doing so, it gently disentangles the ugly knot of violence and self-destructiveness at the heart of masculinity. Winker approaches his subject with keen eye for life’s absurdity, grotesquery and tragedy. The novel’s metafictional dimension — it begins with a “review” of itself — is deployed to great effect, the ironies of its formal self-consciousness acting as cover for its underlying sincerity and its distinct note of melancholy. Daring and hilarious, Grimmish is a uniquely witty and original contribution to Australian literature
January 23, 2021
Strange and playful and funny semi-novel about a prodigy of turning obdurate incompetence into a sort of success. I know little and care even less about boxing and I still love this book. Tthe funniest book about suffering and pain you'll ever read. If more Australian fiction was half this interesting and peculiar we'd all be much better off.
July 25, 2023
Actually Lives Up to its Blurbs
Review of the Peninsula Press (UK) paperback edition (2023) of the self-published Australian paperback original (2021).
When I say "blurbs", I mean especially the one from J.M. Coetzee. But you can see a further considerable number of blurbs and review quotes for Grimmish at the Coach House Books page for the book's North American edition here.
This is one mindbender of a fiction/non-fiction historical novel which is only superficially about its lead protagonist, Italian-American boxer Joe Grim (1881-1939) variously known as "The Iron Man" and "The Human Punching Bag" due to the amount of brutal pounding he could withstand in the ring without being knocked out and always going the distance in rounds, even if almost all of his fights were loses (on points, not KOs).
Photograph of Joe Grim. Image sourced from On Milwaukee.
Author Winkler frames the non-fiction story of Grim's 1908-09 tour of Australia (where he was a sparring partner with both Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns prior to their Dec. 26, 1908 World Heavyweight Championship bout in Sydney) with a fictional meta-fiction of a writer visiting his aging 'uncle' who has accumulated a lifetime's research into the boxer after being an unofficial part of the pugilist's Australian ring-team. But then it gets surreal as the 'uncle' tells tales of his joining Grim in a walk across Australia with a talking swearing goat.
All of this is accompanied by copious footnotes, often using contemporary newspaper articles but sometimes just referring to related quotes which Winkler happens to like. The lines between the fictional nephew and author Winkler blur frequently and at times it seems as if it is Winkler walking with Grim while subject to the constant stream of 'fucks' and 'fucken' from the goat (is the choice of animal a wink at the Greatest Of All Time present day GOAT memes?).
You may think at first (as I did) that you would have no interest in a book supposedly about boxing. But Grimmish is something well beyond that, it is surreal, fantasy non-fiction if such a genre existed and it will keep you entertained and laughing (at and with the goat) throughout.
I read Grimmish as the June 2023 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Other Reviews
The 'exploded non-fiction novel': Michael Winkler's Grimmish by Emmett Stinson, Overland Literary Journal, June 22, 2021.
Literature to Save Us by Oliver Mol, Sydney Review of Books, 2022.
The Pain-Eater by Alex Cothren, Australian Book Review, April 2022.
Soundtrack
Definitely had to go with Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson (1971) given the regular references to boxer Jack Johnson throughout this book. Primarily recorded at a 1970 session, the Jack Johnson album includes some bits from the 1969 In A Silent Way sessions when guitarist John McLaughlin asked Miles how he should play and Miles gave the legendary answer: "Play as if you don't know how to play the guitar." Mclaughlin's splintery playing was the result.
Trivia and Link
Author Michael Winkler introduces the book in a short video produced by Coach House Books (Canada) for the North American edition which you can see here.
Review of the Peninsula Press (UK) paperback edition (2023) of the self-published Australian paperback original (2021).
The strangest book you are likely to read this year. - cover blurb (on some editions) by author J.M. Coetzee.
Some critics has suggested antecedents and comparisons for the experimental literary approach… other people just like the swearing goat. - author Michael Winkler describes reactions to the book.
When I say "blurbs", I mean especially the one from J.M. Coetzee. But you can see a further considerable number of blurbs and review quotes for Grimmish at the Coach House Books page for the book's North American edition here.
This is one mindbender of a fiction/non-fiction historical novel which is only superficially about its lead protagonist, Italian-American boxer Joe Grim (1881-1939) variously known as "The Iron Man" and "The Human Punching Bag" due to the amount of brutal pounding he could withstand in the ring without being knocked out and always going the distance in rounds, even if almost all of his fights were loses (on points, not KOs).
Photograph of Joe Grim. Image sourced from On Milwaukee.
Author Winkler frames the non-fiction story of Grim's 1908-09 tour of Australia (where he was a sparring partner with both Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns prior to their Dec. 26, 1908 World Heavyweight Championship bout in Sydney) with a fictional meta-fiction of a writer visiting his aging 'uncle' who has accumulated a lifetime's research into the boxer after being an unofficial part of the pugilist's Australian ring-team. But then it gets surreal as the 'uncle' tells tales of his joining Grim in a walk across Australia with a talking swearing goat.
All of this is accompanied by copious footnotes, often using contemporary newspaper articles but sometimes just referring to related quotes which Winkler happens to like. The lines between the fictional nephew and author Winkler blur frequently and at times it seems as if it is Winkler walking with Grim while subject to the constant stream of 'fucks' and 'fucken' from the goat (is the choice of animal a wink at the Greatest Of All Time present day GOAT memes?).
You may think at first (as I did) that you would have no interest in a book supposedly about boxing. But Grimmish is something well beyond that, it is surreal, fantasy non-fiction if such a genre existed and it will keep you entertained and laughing (at and with the goat) throughout.
I read Grimmish as the June 2023 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.
Other Reviews
The 'exploded non-fiction novel': Michael Winkler's Grimmish by Emmett Stinson, Overland Literary Journal, June 22, 2021.
Literature to Save Us by Oliver Mol, Sydney Review of Books, 2022.
The Pain-Eater by Alex Cothren, Australian Book Review, April 2022.
Soundtrack
Definitely had to go with Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson (1971) given the regular references to boxer Jack Johnson throughout this book. Primarily recorded at a 1970 session, the Jack Johnson album includes some bits from the 1969 In A Silent Way sessions when guitarist John McLaughlin asked Miles how he should play and Miles gave the legendary answer: "Play as if you don't know how to play the guitar." Mclaughlin's splintery playing was the result.
Trivia and Link
Author Michael Winkler introduces the book in a short video produced by Coach House Books (Canada) for the North American edition which you can see here.
July 18, 2023
Much of the talk about Grimmish is about the conditions under which it was published and its nature as an exploded non-fiction. While both of those are interesting, they don't make it unique. What makes this book truly unique is that it's both a philosophical look at sport and it blows apart the saying "history is written by the victor". Winkler decides to give voice to the ultimate punching bag, Joe Grim, a man who hasn't beaten the best but instead has been routinely beaten by the best. Grim is the sort of curiosity who would normally be forgotten a generation or two after he'd fought his last fight, while the champs he fought, like Jack Johnson, get thrown around in the endless GOAT conversations that seem to plague sports at the moment.
Those with no interest in the pugilistic arts will probably blanch at the beatings Grim takes and not agree that his ability to take punishment is something worth investigating. They'll dismiss Joe Grim's mastery of boxing as stupidity. Certainly, there were times in the book where I thought why can't he just fight back but that's how he makes his living and it's his body not mine taking the beating. There's plenty of average fighters who win half their fights and don't make any money. Joe Grim is the only fighter who deliberately goes in and takes the biggest beating possible and still remains standing.
It must be a chilling feeling to be the world champ and knock another man down 30 times just for him to spring back up like Antaeus each time. Punches that normally strike fear into your opponents and send them to the shadow realm just seem to be sucked into the abyss of pain. Then after 20 rounds when you've won the bout but are absolutely gassed, your opponent, who you knocked down 30 times, does a back flip and showboats around.
Winkler in his self-written review talks about exploded non-fiction. His introduction of a goat into the narrative won't be loved by many but I quite liked our caprine friend and now want wise cracking goats to turn up in other non-fiction books I read. It made me think of the Goatwriter in David Mitchell's Number9Dream or the monkey in Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil. As for the uniqueness of exploded non-fiction, very early on I felt quite a similarity to Maria Tumarkin's Axiomatic. The strong prose seeded with philosophical musings from a constantly visible narrator was a style that, despite Winkler's insistence, is not his invention. It came as no surprise to see Tumarkin in the footnotes on page 104, Winkler has clearly read his fellow Victorian's book.
Grimmish definitely fades towards the end and in some ways this is sympathetic to Joe Grim's own failing pugilistic powers and the narrator's uncle's increasing inebriation, one is getting punch drunk while the other is just getting drunk. There's a certain poetic quality to the ending but it still felt like the weakest part of the book.
There's something deeply primal about a sport that involves beating the opposition into unconsciousness but there's also something deeply idiotic about two guys giving each other brain damage. Winkler somehow manages to find the romance in what is a truly dire line of work. As far as boxing books go this is right up there with The Sweet Science and The Fight. It does fall more on the literary fiction side of the fence than those two and it won't necessarily appeal to lovers of other boxing books but for those from the Cus d'Amato school of mind over matter it might just blow you away.
While I don't really care for awards I do see it as a great travesty that this book was knocked out by Jennifer Down's Bodies of Light in the Miles Franklin. Part of me feels the award selectors didn't know what to do with it and the conspiracy part of me wonders if they were worried what it would say about the book industry when a self-published work trounces all the other books that year. I also think this is the most masculine book I've read in a very long time and I'm well aware that it will repulse a lot of readers. But literature wasn't invented to garner awards, it was created to explore the human spirit and with that as our guiding light this is literature at it's finest.
Those with no interest in the pugilistic arts will probably blanch at the beatings Grim takes and not agree that his ability to take punishment is something worth investigating. They'll dismiss Joe Grim's mastery of boxing as stupidity. Certainly, there were times in the book where I thought why can't he just fight back but that's how he makes his living and it's his body not mine taking the beating. There's plenty of average fighters who win half their fights and don't make any money. Joe Grim is the only fighter who deliberately goes in and takes the biggest beating possible and still remains standing.
It must be a chilling feeling to be the world champ and knock another man down 30 times just for him to spring back up like Antaeus each time. Punches that normally strike fear into your opponents and send them to the shadow realm just seem to be sucked into the abyss of pain. Then after 20 rounds when you've won the bout but are absolutely gassed, your opponent, who you knocked down 30 times, does a back flip and showboats around.
Winkler in his self-written review talks about exploded non-fiction. His introduction of a goat into the narrative won't be loved by many but I quite liked our caprine friend and now want wise cracking goats to turn up in other non-fiction books I read. It made me think of the Goatwriter in David Mitchell's Number9Dream or the monkey in Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil. As for the uniqueness of exploded non-fiction, very early on I felt quite a similarity to Maria Tumarkin's Axiomatic. The strong prose seeded with philosophical musings from a constantly visible narrator was a style that, despite Winkler's insistence, is not his invention. It came as no surprise to see Tumarkin in the footnotes on page 104, Winkler has clearly read his fellow Victorian's book.
Grimmish definitely fades towards the end and in some ways this is sympathetic to Joe Grim's own failing pugilistic powers and the narrator's uncle's increasing inebriation, one is getting punch drunk while the other is just getting drunk. There's a certain poetic quality to the ending but it still felt like the weakest part of the book.
There's something deeply primal about a sport that involves beating the opposition into unconsciousness but there's also something deeply idiotic about two guys giving each other brain damage. Winkler somehow manages to find the romance in what is a truly dire line of work. As far as boxing books go this is right up there with The Sweet Science and The Fight. It does fall more on the literary fiction side of the fence than those two and it won't necessarily appeal to lovers of other boxing books but for those from the Cus d'Amato school of mind over matter it might just blow you away.
While I don't really care for awards I do see it as a great travesty that this book was knocked out by Jennifer Down's Bodies of Light in the Miles Franklin. Part of me feels the award selectors didn't know what to do with it and the conspiracy part of me wonders if they were worried what it would say about the book industry when a self-published work trounces all the other books that year. I also think this is the most masculine book I've read in a very long time and I'm well aware that it will repulse a lot of readers. But literature wasn't invented to garner awards, it was created to explore the human spirit and with that as our guiding light this is literature at it's finest.
June 15, 2023
Theatre of Pain
Joe Grim, early 20thC middleweight boxer, renowned for never getting knocked out in a fight. He won relatively few fights in his life, but earned the reputation of Iron Man for the simple act of standing up, or getting back proving he could never be knocked out. He had no defence to speak of, he traded on the one commodity he had to make money - stand up take a beating. The more he took, the more the crowd liked him. Let me put this mildly, his face would be turned into something like mince meat by the end a long fight.
In 1908 he toured Australia. Michael Winkler, Australian author, introduces us to Grim via the facts of his tour, followed up with fictional accounts, some aphoristic, philosophical and medical interludes, weaving it all together with a kind of fairy tale form - an old uncle spent time with Grim on tour and for a flagon of cheap sherry is happy to tell the tale. Naturally, fairytale time is different to normal time.
This book came as the surprise shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award in 2022. Self published, no one wanted it apparently. The Miles is the oldest national book award in Australia.
Masculine pain, variable narrative style - fact, fiction, fairy tale, footnotes, the constantly shifting narrative "I" makes for a variable reading experience too. Not that I haven't exposure to such, but I found it all a little loose as a piece of writing. Too many floppy sentences, not enough of a recognisable voice. I do like a good voice in the writing. The metaphor of pain, extensively covered. Some bits shone. The reportage style was probably the strongest, the goat stories, left me cold and indifferent. But I don't want to bag the book, since we need more writing like this.
Joe Grim, early 20thC middleweight boxer, renowned for never getting knocked out in a fight. He won relatively few fights in his life, but earned the reputation of Iron Man for the simple act of standing up, or getting back proving he could never be knocked out. He had no defence to speak of, he traded on the one commodity he had to make money - stand up take a beating. The more he took, the more the crowd liked him. Let me put this mildly, his face would be turned into something like mince meat by the end a long fight.
In 1908 he toured Australia. Michael Winkler, Australian author, introduces us to Grim via the facts of his tour, followed up with fictional accounts, some aphoristic, philosophical and medical interludes, weaving it all together with a kind of fairy tale form - an old uncle spent time with Grim on tour and for a flagon of cheap sherry is happy to tell the tale. Naturally, fairytale time is different to normal time.
This book came as the surprise shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award in 2022. Self published, no one wanted it apparently. The Miles is the oldest national book award in Australia.
Masculine pain, variable narrative style - fact, fiction, fairy tale, footnotes, the constantly shifting narrative "I" makes for a variable reading experience too. Not that I haven't exposure to such, but I found it all a little loose as a piece of writing. Too many floppy sentences, not enough of a recognisable voice. I do like a good voice in the writing. The metaphor of pain, extensively covered. Some bits shone. The reportage style was probably the strongest, the goat stories, left me cold and indifferent. But I don't want to bag the book, since we need more writing like this.
June 30, 2022
There is clearly a massive fan base for this book, and you can see why. It is so very clever - and doesn't waste its cleverness, but rather deploys it in service of challenging the reader to think about big ideas. It is also an unambiguously masculine book which is becoming rarer in literary fiction. I didn't really expect to love it - for starters I find boxing very difficult to engage with - which was good, because that was a pretty accurate assessment . I did like it, but I found it flawed in ways that seem to be receiving less attention than its successes.
In part, I think it should be noted that Winkler deploys fourth-wall breaking techniques in ways that deliberately shape the attention of the viewer, but which also ensure the work is interrogated on Winkler's own terms. This is most noticeable when Winkler calls himself out - drawing attention to the lack of women in the text, or the absence of dealing with First Nations issues. On one level this invites interrogation of these issues, but on another level it also invites absolution., and mostly, it enables Grimmish to move on to the things it really wants to talk about.
It's not that these are not great techniques. But they are deployed repeatedly. The structure, dnesly woven and with unreliable narrators, time jumps and absurdity layered alongside it certainly isn't the only thing going on.
The book is more non-fiction than fiction, I think, although it certainly uses fictional techniques. But in the end, Winkler's comments on the writing process feel most significant here. His exploration of Grim is one largely of pain, of Grim as an avatar of endurance and suffering. This physical pain - and the descriptions are visceral of bones crunching and blood spurting - is always explored in a contrast/companion of psychological pain. I was acutely aware of my perspective here of living with a pain condition - which I think lessened my patience with this attempt to find meaning in pain, which for me is more tedium than drama. This is, however, a wonderful summary of the impact: ""What is the thing we call pain? It is something that captures the attention of the sufferer, but otherwise has no meaning. It makes no sound, has no colour or smell, occupies no physical space. And yet at its most extreme, pain becomes the only thing of which the sufferer is aware, bigger for the victim in that instant than any object in the universe."
But then, of course, the book is as much about why this matters to Winkler as it is about the topic itself. This takes us into a discussion about the act of writing itself, but also carries the feeling that the writer cannot escape his own head (One of the best quotes: "If you take up residence in your own head for long enough, you start to think you’re able to evict the landlord.")
As you can see, Winkler has that enviable ability to put words together in ways that feel both new and inevitable making writing a pleasure to read. This is perhaps truest when he is discussing mental health, and I found myself madly clipping. This writing also feels the time you get the closest to Winkler, and where the writing consequently hits (in the best way) the hardest (while always, of course, letting you get back up for another punch!).
In part, I think it should be noted that Winkler deploys fourth-wall breaking techniques in ways that deliberately shape the attention of the viewer, but which also ensure the work is interrogated on Winkler's own terms. This is most noticeable when Winkler calls himself out - drawing attention to the lack of women in the text, or the absence of dealing with First Nations issues. On one level this invites interrogation of these issues, but on another level it also invites absolution., and mostly, it enables Grimmish to move on to the things it really wants to talk about.
It's not that these are not great techniques. But they are deployed repeatedly. The structure, dnesly woven and with unreliable narrators, time jumps and absurdity layered alongside it certainly isn't the only thing going on.
The book is more non-fiction than fiction, I think, although it certainly uses fictional techniques. But in the end, Winkler's comments on the writing process feel most significant here. His exploration of Grim is one largely of pain, of Grim as an avatar of endurance and suffering. This physical pain - and the descriptions are visceral of bones crunching and blood spurting - is always explored in a contrast/companion of psychological pain. I was acutely aware of my perspective here of living with a pain condition - which I think lessened my patience with this attempt to find meaning in pain, which for me is more tedium than drama. This is, however, a wonderful summary of the impact: ""What is the thing we call pain? It is something that captures the attention of the sufferer, but otherwise has no meaning. It makes no sound, has no colour or smell, occupies no physical space. And yet at its most extreme, pain becomes the only thing of which the sufferer is aware, bigger for the victim in that instant than any object in the universe."
But then, of course, the book is as much about why this matters to Winkler as it is about the topic itself. This takes us into a discussion about the act of writing itself, but also carries the feeling that the writer cannot escape his own head (One of the best quotes: "If you take up residence in your own head for long enough, you start to think you’re able to evict the landlord.")
As you can see, Winkler has that enviable ability to put words together in ways that feel both new and inevitable making writing a pleasure to read. This is perhaps truest when he is discussing mental health, and I found myself madly clipping. This writing also feels the time you get the closest to Winkler, and where the writing consequently hits (in the best way) the hardest (while always, of course, letting you get back up for another punch!).
July 19, 2023
It is very hard to summarize this book. At its core, it is a biography of the American boxer Joe Grim. He hardly won any fights but became famous for being impossible to knock out and take an inhuman amount of blows on his head. He came to Australia for a tour of fights in 1908 and that is where the story takes off.
"Who has knocked Joe Grim out? Nobody. It is impossible. Why? I will tell you. First, I have no fear.Second, I feel no pain. A blow is something to laugh at. When I am hit on the jaw I shake my head. I think of my ancestors in Naples and the thing is forgotten."
But describing this as a biography would be much too narrow as Winkler embellishes the scant biographical facts with highly innovative, profound, weird and erudite explorations. It starts off straightforward enough, but soon there are crazy footnotes and talking goats making you wonder what the hell it is you are reading.
I don't particularly care for boxing, nor for the exploration of masculinity, but it was both fun and impressive to see what the author was doing.
"I thought of all the projects I have worked on and not told my wife the details of until they were done, and all of them coming to nought: the novels, unpublished, unwanted; the plays, unproduced, unwanted; innumerable poems, reviews, monologues, opinion columns, soiled rags of on-spec journalism, and of course indigestible short stories, perhaps my most awful metier, actually obviously not, that would definitely be the poetry. And I tried to do some math, and I thought it might be between half-a-million and a million words written in hope of publication and then thrown back in my face or, far more accurately, slumping slowly into the void of non-acknowledgement. And I tried and failed to convert those words (most redrafted-rethought-rewritten three, five, seventeen times) into minutes and days and I could not do it, and then I realized that what they added up to, really, was most of a lifetime. And I said to my wife, I have spent my allotted years in a room alone writing words no one wants or will ever read, it is the most stupid life imaginable. And my wife, my perfect wife, held me tight against her in my wretchedness and said, no, darling; it might be absurd, but it is not stupid."
To understand how this quote fits in Joe Grim's 1908 story you'll have to read the book :)
3,5 rounded up for originality
"Who has knocked Joe Grim out? Nobody. It is impossible. Why? I will tell you. First, I have no fear.Second, I feel no pain. A blow is something to laugh at. When I am hit on the jaw I shake my head. I think of my ancestors in Naples and the thing is forgotten."
But describing this as a biography would be much too narrow as Winkler embellishes the scant biographical facts with highly innovative, profound, weird and erudite explorations. It starts off straightforward enough, but soon there are crazy footnotes and talking goats making you wonder what the hell it is you are reading.
I don't particularly care for boxing, nor for the exploration of masculinity, but it was both fun and impressive to see what the author was doing.
"I thought of all the projects I have worked on and not told my wife the details of until they were done, and all of them coming to nought: the novels, unpublished, unwanted; the plays, unproduced, unwanted; innumerable poems, reviews, monologues, opinion columns, soiled rags of on-spec journalism, and of course indigestible short stories, perhaps my most awful metier, actually obviously not, that would definitely be the poetry. And I tried to do some math, and I thought it might be between half-a-million and a million words written in hope of publication and then thrown back in my face or, far more accurately, slumping slowly into the void of non-acknowledgement. And I tried and failed to convert those words (most redrafted-rethought-rewritten three, five, seventeen times) into minutes and days and I could not do it, and then I realized that what they added up to, really, was most of a lifetime. And I said to my wife, I have spent my allotted years in a room alone writing words no one wants or will ever read, it is the most stupid life imaginable. And my wife, my perfect wife, held me tight against her in my wretchedness and said, no, darling; it might be absurd, but it is not stupid."
To understand how this quote fits in Joe Grim's 1908 story you'll have to read the book :)
3,5 rounded up for originality
August 7, 2024
4.5 stars
“You know what you fucken need?” said the goat. “A self-published Australian exploded nonfiction novel about boxing and masculinity featuring a potty-mouthed talking goat. That’s what you fucken need.”
To which my heart’s surprising reply was that yes, that was pretty much what I needed right now. Especially surprising because I don’t think it’s possible to know less about boxing than I do (even after reading this book I basically know nothing) and I’m one of those people for whom Australia hardly exists.
Michael Winkler uses the 1908 visit of Italian-American boxer Joe Grim to Australia as his loose framework to explore man’s (as in men’s not as in men and women’s) relationship to pain. Grim isn’t much of a boxer, but he has an almost supernatural ability to withstand being punched in the head. This contrasts with our narrator (Winkler?), who fears pain, yet is preoccupied with the spectacle of it. Not much is known about Grim, so he fleshes out his narrative with quotes, digressions, discussions with a drunken uncle who may have known Grim, elaborate narrative construction and yes, a potty-mouthed talking goat.
It’s a pretty delirious ride.
Why write a book about pain when there are many sunny aspects of the human condition that could be written about instead?... Perhaps because there are ghosts in my head, old horrors and insecurities that link to tropes of masculine behaviour and rural Australia….It seems certain that on and off from age thirteen I was sick, to a greater or lesser extent, so that swirling obsession with pain, and men, and Australia, and courage, and cowardice, was happening in a mind subject to deep dis-ease.
There is a further dis-ease between the subject, the examination of an intensely physical sport and culture, with the paradox of using words and literature as a way to digest it, particularly when your words seem to be unwanted in the literary culture of today. Winkler quotes Maria Tumarkin: “Narrative, when fetishized, can become an evolved and brilliantly disguised way of shutting our ears to what hurts and scares us the most.” And Winkler seems preoccupied not only with his physical manhood but with his literary irrelevance (hopefully the sleeper success of this book has put that demon to rest):
For some reason then I thought of all the projects I have worked on and not told my wife the details of until they were done, and all of them coming to nought: the novels unpublished, unwanted; the plays unproduced, unwanted; innumerable poems, reviews, monologues, opinion columns, soiled rags of on.-spec journalism and, of course, indigestible short stories, perhaps my most awful metier, actually obviously not, that would definitely be the poetry.
The dark physicality of masculinity makes it hard to be a man; the intellectual world doesn’t seem to easy either. What’s left? Getting punched in the head.
There were a few wrong turns here for me. I’m not sure I needed so much goat. And there’s the (admitted) preemptive discussion of the absence of aboriginal Australians and the (admitted) shoehorning in of a woman… the latter struck me as a missed opportunity. You create a woman in the story just so nobody can say there aren’t any, but you make her a virginal ingenue type and never examine the place where pain and femaleness indelibly intersect, in childbirth, that humdrum activity in which pain is fetishized as much as it ever is in fighting sports?
Anyway, there’s a few things this book is not. But it is an entertaining, creative and audacious book, a definite alternative beach read.
“You know what you fucken need?” said the goat. “A self-published Australian exploded nonfiction novel about boxing and masculinity featuring a potty-mouthed talking goat. That’s what you fucken need.”
To which my heart’s surprising reply was that yes, that was pretty much what I needed right now. Especially surprising because I don’t think it’s possible to know less about boxing than I do (even after reading this book I basically know nothing) and I’m one of those people for whom Australia hardly exists.
Michael Winkler uses the 1908 visit of Italian-American boxer Joe Grim to Australia as his loose framework to explore man’s (as in men’s not as in men and women’s) relationship to pain. Grim isn’t much of a boxer, but he has an almost supernatural ability to withstand being punched in the head. This contrasts with our narrator (Winkler?), who fears pain, yet is preoccupied with the spectacle of it. Not much is known about Grim, so he fleshes out his narrative with quotes, digressions, discussions with a drunken uncle who may have known Grim, elaborate narrative construction and yes, a potty-mouthed talking goat.
It’s a pretty delirious ride.
Why write a book about pain when there are many sunny aspects of the human condition that could be written about instead?... Perhaps because there are ghosts in my head, old horrors and insecurities that link to tropes of masculine behaviour and rural Australia….It seems certain that on and off from age thirteen I was sick, to a greater or lesser extent, so that swirling obsession with pain, and men, and Australia, and courage, and cowardice, was happening in a mind subject to deep dis-ease.
There is a further dis-ease between the subject, the examination of an intensely physical sport and culture, with the paradox of using words and literature as a way to digest it, particularly when your words seem to be unwanted in the literary culture of today. Winkler quotes Maria Tumarkin: “Narrative, when fetishized, can become an evolved and brilliantly disguised way of shutting our ears to what hurts and scares us the most.” And Winkler seems preoccupied not only with his physical manhood but with his literary irrelevance (hopefully the sleeper success of this book has put that demon to rest):
For some reason then I thought of all the projects I have worked on and not told my wife the details of until they were done, and all of them coming to nought: the novels unpublished, unwanted; the plays unproduced, unwanted; innumerable poems, reviews, monologues, opinion columns, soiled rags of on.-spec journalism and, of course, indigestible short stories, perhaps my most awful metier, actually obviously not, that would definitely be the poetry.
The dark physicality of masculinity makes it hard to be a man; the intellectual world doesn’t seem to easy either. What’s left? Getting punched in the head.
There were a few wrong turns here for me. I’m not sure I needed so much goat. And there’s the (admitted) preemptive discussion of the absence of aboriginal Australians and the (admitted) shoehorning in of a woman… the latter struck me as a missed opportunity. You create a woman in the story just so nobody can say there aren’t any, but you make her a virginal ingenue type and never examine the place where pain and femaleness indelibly intersect, in childbirth, that humdrum activity in which pain is fetishized as much as it ever is in fighting sports?
Anyway, there’s a few things this book is not. But it is an entertaining, creative and audacious book, a definite alternative beach read.
June 25, 2022
This is a wonderful novel. I'm reading it for the second time in 12 months now. Originally a self-published book that found some reviewers and a publisher, it is now on the short list for the Myles Franklin Award, one of the most prestigious in Australia.
April 25, 2023
One of the freshest, most exciting, and utterly batshit crazy books I've read in a long time.
Grimmish concerns the enigmatic and curious Joe Grim: Italian immigrant to America; a boxer who, despite rarely winning a bout, was famed for being impossible to knock out. They all tried - even Jack Johnson couldn't manage it.
Michael Winkler takes Grim's story and starts to tell it... then he chucks the fucking rulebook out the window. Unbound by the constraints of either fiction or history, he weaves an insane tale, blending boxing action, the memories of an imaginary uncle who bore witness to Grim's many punishments, a tour across the outback with a talking goat, critiques of pain and combat and masculinity, and all sorts of other madnesses.
This 'exploded non-fiction novel' is a work of pure genius that is unlike anything else I've read. It'll live long in the memory.
Grimmish concerns the enigmatic and curious Joe Grim: Italian immigrant to America; a boxer who, despite rarely winning a bout, was famed for being impossible to knock out. They all tried - even Jack Johnson couldn't manage it.
Michael Winkler takes Grim's story and starts to tell it... then he chucks the fucking rulebook out the window. Unbound by the constraints of either fiction or history, he weaves an insane tale, blending boxing action, the memories of an imaginary uncle who bore witness to Grim's many punishments, a tour across the outback with a talking goat, critiques of pain and combat and masculinity, and all sorts of other madnesses.
This 'exploded non-fiction novel' is a work of pure genius that is unlike anything else I've read. It'll live long in the memory.
July 25, 2023
No question at all -- it's so different, so original, so quirky, so me; I really love the way the author has put this novel together using a real historical figure as the basis of his "exploded non-fiction novel." I have absoutely no doubt I'll not read anything like this in the future, and bravo, Michael Winkler! Loved everything about the book.
I have to go through all of the pages I've tabbed to gather my thoughts so I'll return shortly.
I have to go through all of the pages I've tabbed to gather my thoughts so I'll return shortly.
July 24, 2023
A brutal & canny book that toes the line between fiction & non-fiction. Recommended.
(For more commentary, check out the Grimmish conversation in the Newest Literary Fiction group.)
(For more commentary, check out the Grimmish conversation in the Newest Literary Fiction group.)
February 15, 2023
Delightfully weird.
May 20, 2023
Video review https://youtu.be/GL6XOULknPo
July 17, 2022
Nominally about an un-knockoutable boxer touring Australia in the early 20th century, but really a deeper exploration of masculinity and pain.
The book is an enigmatic but energetic piece of “exploded historical fiction”. Impossible not to be reminded of David Foster Wallace - stories within stories, narrators begetting narrators, and plenty of preambulation.
The book is an enigmatic but energetic piece of “exploded historical fiction”. Impossible not to be reminded of David Foster Wallace - stories within stories, narrators begetting narrators, and plenty of preambulation.
April 4, 2023
The only book I finished while on vacation was GRIMMISH by Michael Winkler. I was sold right away from the front cover to read this book since I love a good strange book. It’s a strange book for sure but I didn’t end up loving this one. It starts off super uniquely with a book review by the author. It’s about Italian-American boxer Joe Grim and his time in Australia in 1908-09. The writing is interesting as there’s so many footnotes but I found them detracting. The story meanders and goes off in weird tangents. I wasn’t engaged by the characters but the interesting writing style kept me reading until the end. I’m glad I read this one to satisfy my curiosity about just how strange this book is.
Thank you to Coach House Books for my advance review copy!
Thank you to Coach House Books for my advance review copy!
July 3, 2022
Wow - just wow. Who even knew there was such a thing as "an exploded non-fiction novel"? And that it could be so good! Brutal fight scenes, hilarious jokes, thoughtful interrogation of pain & sport/entertainment & brilliant magic realism (a talking goat crossing Australia). Truly the weirdest mash-up I've ever read, but it works incredibly well. No review of this book will ever be able to do it justice as the book is literally indescribable. An instant classic of Australian literature that deserves to be re-read & remembered for many years.
September 6, 2022
This is going to be the most negative review I've ever written.
I feel I'm going to buck the trend here, because I did not like this book at all. I read it because it's on the Miles Franklin Literary Award long list. It made the short list, so I thought it would be at least an average read.
I just didn't like it. It did nothing for me. Even its musing on philosophy, writing, mental health, and violence failed to pique my interest. Maybe it's the writing style, which I found too forced and too loud. Maybe it's that I don't see the point of boxing, or of attempting to elicit endearment for a man who spent his life being a human punching bag, much to his detriment. I think the main reason is that I just didn't enjoy the blending of so many non-relatable styles in this book. It seems there are people who do, and I'm happy that they could enjoy this story.
Because I could not.
Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't feel that I'd been subjected to reading a forced experiment. I mean, including a talking goat. It wasn't clever, in my opinion, and it wasn't avant-garde or surreal. It was absurdity and has left me wondering why this has been lauded as being a masterpiece.
I feel I'm going to buck the trend here, because I did not like this book at all. I read it because it's on the Miles Franklin Literary Award long list. It made the short list, so I thought it would be at least an average read.
I just didn't like it. It did nothing for me. Even its musing on philosophy, writing, mental health, and violence failed to pique my interest. Maybe it's the writing style, which I found too forced and too loud. Maybe it's that I don't see the point of boxing, or of attempting to elicit endearment for a man who spent his life being a human punching bag, much to his detriment. I think the main reason is that I just didn't enjoy the blending of so many non-relatable styles in this book. It seems there are people who do, and I'm happy that they could enjoy this story.
Because I could not.
Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't feel that I'd been subjected to reading a forced experiment. I mean, including a talking goat. It wasn't clever, in my opinion, and it wasn't avant-garde or surreal. It was absurdity and has left me wondering why this has been lauded as being a masterpiece.
July 23, 2022
3.5 stars. An original, interesting, thought provoking, quasi biography about boxer, Joe Grim, mainly writing about the two years Grim was in Australia during 1907 to 1909. Grim, an Italian, emigrated to USA. He is renown for his high pain threshold. He could be knocked down many times during a fight, but he could not be knocked out. He always got back up, never throwing in the towel. He lost many fights!
There are many quotes from newspapers of the time and a lot of descriptions of physical violence. There is even a description of a head butting competition. Grim trained by punching a tree, standing on his head and twisting his body, and by immersing his head in bull/cow urine.
During this book the author includes a critique of this book by himself, making some interesting points on writing about historical events.
A very worthwhile reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin award.
There are many quotes from newspapers of the time and a lot of descriptions of physical violence. There is even a description of a head butting competition. Grim trained by punching a tree, standing on his head and twisting his body, and by immersing his head in bull/cow urine.
During this book the author includes a critique of this book by himself, making some interesting points on writing about historical events.
A very worthwhile reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin award.
December 2, 2024
Read my review: https://meanjin.com.au/books/somethin...
January 31, 2024
Fucken ace said the goat. And for once he meant it.
#
And now, at last (seven months later), for a more "traditional" review!
This is an astonishing book. Unexpected, thought-provoking, at times funny, at times deeply moving. And it has a goat providing bracing commentary and smart remarks. (Everyone loves the goat, Michael sighs.)
I admit I approached this story in some trepidation. I am not a fan of pain or of boxing. But of course - while the author deals with these subjects in convincing detail - as with anything well-written, the story as a whole transcends the place it began, and covers a wide swathe of human experience.
Questions of mental health arise - both Grim's and the narrator's. Questions that are directly relevant to this reader. Chapter 9, in this regard, I found utterly profound. It is short - and it is so on point.
The humour is clever and dry - from both the goat and the narrator - and had me occasionally barking with laughter. The narrator's meta content in this self-styled "exploded non-fiction novel" is delightful - even when it includes painful reflections on what counts as success or even sense for creators.
Joe Grim was a fascinating character. For a long while we only see him from the outside, from the narrator's point of view. And I was as intrigued and puzzled as anyone might be. Who is he on the inside, I wondered. How does Grim himself think about all this. The mystery continues for a while, as Grim is not a talkative character.
Eventually, though, Grim begins to tell his story - and I was very impressed by how his voice was crafted. The way he talked, and how he shared what he shared. The author did a superb job with this! His superbly crafted voice...
And the goat. Did I mention the fucken goat?
Fucken ace.
#
And now, at last (seven months later), for a more "traditional" review!
This is an astonishing book. Unexpected, thought-provoking, at times funny, at times deeply moving. And it has a goat providing bracing commentary and smart remarks. (Everyone loves the goat, Michael sighs.)
I admit I approached this story in some trepidation. I am not a fan of pain or of boxing. But of course - while the author deals with these subjects in convincing detail - as with anything well-written, the story as a whole transcends the place it began, and covers a wide swathe of human experience.
Questions of mental health arise - both Grim's and the narrator's. Questions that are directly relevant to this reader. Chapter 9, in this regard, I found utterly profound. It is short - and it is so on point.
The humour is clever and dry - from both the goat and the narrator - and had me occasionally barking with laughter. The narrator's meta content in this self-styled "exploded non-fiction novel" is delightful - even when it includes painful reflections on what counts as success or even sense for creators.
Joe Grim was a fascinating character. For a long while we only see him from the outside, from the narrator's point of view. And I was as intrigued and puzzled as anyone might be. Who is he on the inside, I wondered. How does Grim himself think about all this. The mystery continues for a while, as Grim is not a talkative character.
Eventually, though, Grim begins to tell his story - and I was very impressed by how his voice was crafted. The way he talked, and how he shared what he shared. The author did a superb job with this! His superbly crafted voice...
And the goat. Did I mention the fucken goat?
Fucken ace.
May 26, 2023
Part study in boxing history, part treatise on pain, part feral pig and fucking goat fever dream. I really enjoyed this book, and learning about Joe Grim. It wasn’t necessarily easy to get through but was rewarding.
July 20, 2023
What I mostly got from this one, a few chuckles because of a saucy goat notwithstanding, is that I really need to get to Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World as soon as possible, which is surprisingly absent from references in the novel (and there are a lot of them).
April 19, 2025
The author calls this exploded non fiction. The base concept is charting the life of boxer Joe Grim whose ability to withstand punishment held no bounds. However, it also has talking goats and long footnotes, and ruminates on pain and masculinity, quoting everything from Nietzsche to essays on professional wrestling as it goes. I loved it.
July 22, 2023
There is no universe where this gets on the Booker longlist, but it would be aggressively based if it did.
Read
December 6, 2022'The veneration of the footy star. Some of them had no redeeming features whatsoever except for their lack of physical cowardice in a sporting contest, but nevertheless they were local heroes. '
February 19, 2024
Super interestingly written, which I love, but I think I'm not enough into boxing to truly appreciate, nor do I love pain enough. Love the goat and all the unable to tell what is made up scenes, but just not that interested in the man the myth the legend Joe grim
April 1, 2025
This was so good. Even better than I thought. Will definitely revisiting this.
May 1, 2023
i really liked this though i am arguably predisposed to loving this as someone with a questionable relationship to pain who is also someone who really likes seeing what language and form can do. exploded non-fiction! pain artiste!
August 10, 2022
That was chaotic
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