Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine

by Thom Jones

The Barnes & Noble Review
Sparring Partners

In the fall of 1984, after Raymond Carver's Cathedral came out, I got a letter from a former professor of mine, the best writing teacher I ever had. It was in his class three years earlier that I'd first been exposed to Carver's stories. It was under his tutelage that I came fully to appreciate Carver's idiosyncratic, totemic genius.

The letter was generous about what he'd seen of my new writing. What I remember best about the letter, though, was its postscript. He'd read Cathedral and was disappointed. Nearly all the protagonists are inarticulate, blue-collar drunks, struggling not to be either. Most fail. Busted marriages everywhere. The same components, again and again and again. Carver seems, my professor wrote, to have lapsed into self-parody.

Those sentiments — all of which except the self-parody part are indisputable — were shared by many reviewers. Yet 15 years later, opinion has come full circle: The stories in Cathedral are those upon which Carver's reputation most squarely rests. The similarities between the stories' component elements are a unifying device, but a deceptive one. Upon further review (as NFL referees were once wont to say), the stories in that book have a greater depth and broader range of emotion than those in Carver's earlier books. The subject matter is more diverse. The shapes the stories take are more varied. Even the spectrum of socioeconomic classes depicted is wider. Carver's core obsessions, far from seeming self-parodic, are part of what makes Carver so strangely andwonderfullyhimself.

So it is in the sublime oeuvre of Vladimir Nabokov, who, with five-minutes-to-Wapner tirelessness, returns in book after book to chess, tennis, doppelgängers, émigrés, and butterflies. Though this may sound like shtick, it plays more as the signature moves of a great athlete; watching the components accrue is like watching Michael Jordan play, waiting to see that unblockable fadeaway, that semiunconscious tongue loll, that assassin's look he gets in his eye with the game on the line. (I'm sure, if I knew anything about chess or tennis, the allusion here might appropriately be to Bobby Fischer or Martina Navratilova, but I am, alas, a prisoner to my own core obsessions).

And so it is with Thom Jones in all three of his books — his debut, the National Book Award-nominated The Pugilist At Rest, the much-admired title story of which became an instant classic; Cold Snap, which may have lacked a killer story on the order of "The Pugilist at Rest" but was a more consistently dazzling book; and the brand-spanking-new left jab and right cross of Sonny Liston was a Friend of Mine.

Jones's eclectic checklist of obsessions:

Janitors. Epilepsy. The chronically unemployed ("No-Jobs," they call themselves). Tormented lower fauna (the new book includes a talismanic tarantula, a doomed roadrunner, and, most memorably, in the brilliant "Mouses," several dozen mice at the mercy of a No-Job whose pathology manifests itself in his stay-at-home stint as a self-taught lab scientist: a clinically detached bout of sadism and earnest self-delusion that only seems chilling when you step away from the story — and all the more chilling thereby). Vietnam. Clinical madness (including "A Midnight Clear," a convincing story set on Christmas day at a poorly funded asylum, told from the point of view of a doctor visiting for personal reasons). Brand-name, prescription meds (ingested and discussed by characters who know their effects and side effects with the same ebullient precision jailhouse lawyers bring to the state penal code; in the acknowledgments in Cold Snap, Jones thanks the manufacturers of Elavil and Effexor). German philosophy (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche).

Often: a blue-collar person, often an epileptic Vietnam-vet janitor but sometimes a No-Job, who ingests prescription meds and recoils at cruelty to tormented lower fauna, who without being assigned to do so has read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Best of all, as the titles of books one and three would of course lead you to expect: boxing. This includes both protagonists who box or have boxed as well as classical allusions to Theogenes, John L. Sullivan, and Sonny Liston. Jones's descriptions of boxing (never lengthy, always exact and pithy enough to leave the reader wanting more) have an injured, stoic, insider's perspective to craft that compares favorably even to the work of such formidable sometimes boxing writers as Joyce Carol Oates and Ernest Hemingway.

It's fun and scary to watch these things emerge, story by story, and courageous too, because it's a tactic that by definition walks the line between mannerism and true style — in a way that makes the disparate stories seem...

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, Dark, African American, The United States Of America

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Thom Jones (born January 26, 1945) was an American writer, primarily of short stories.

Jones was raised in Aurora, Illinois, and attended the University of Hawaii, where he played catcher on the baseball team. He later attended the University of Washington, from which he graduated in 1970, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, from which he received an M.F.A. in 1973.
Jones trained in Force Reconnaissance in the Marine Corps but was discharged before his unit was sent to Vietnam. This and other personal experiences, including the suicide of his boxer father in a mental institution, have become important sources of material for his fiction. After graduation from college, he worked as a copywriter for a Chicago advertising agency and later as a janitor, all the while reading and writing for hours each day. He was "discovered" well into his forties by the fiction editors of The New Yorker, who published a series of his stories in the early 1990s, including "The Pugilist at Rest", which won an O. Henry Award.
Jones resided in Olympia, Washington. He had temporal lobe epilepsy and suffered from diabetes.

In 1973, Jones published an animal-fantasy allegory in the dystopian George Orwell mode titled "Brother Dodo's Revenge" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

His first book, published in 1993, was the short-story collection The Pugilist at Rest. The stories deal with common themes of mortality and pain, with characters that often find a kind of solace in the rather pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Boxing, absent or mentally ill fathers, physical trauma and the Vietnam War are also recurring motifs. The collection was a National Book Award finalist. Jones' other two collections of short stories include Cold Snap (1995) and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (1999).

His story "Night Train," which originally appeared in the magazine Tin House, was included in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004. A humorous essay, "Easter Island Noodles Almondine," about time Jones spent as a youth working for the General Mills plant in Aurora, Illinois, appeared in an issue of Granta focused on Chicago, published in 2009. And "Bomb Shelter Noel," a story about a diabetic girl, was published in the January 2011 issue of Playboy.

Reports have appeared stating Jones wrote scripts for feature films, including a Vietnam screenplay for Cheyenne Enterprises, and an adaptation of Larry Brown's novel, The Rabbit Factory, for Ithaka Films.

John Updike in a Salon.com interview praised Jones as one of two writers of a younger generation he admired, and Updike included Jones' story, "I Want To Live!", in the anthology The Best American Short Stories of the Century.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this guy Thom Jones but I hate his name. It looks like a really bad career move. He must have had to say a million times "no, not that Tom Jones, I'm Thom with a H, you think Tom What's New Pussycat Jones would be writing books called The Pugilist At Rest? He wouldn't be able to see his keyboard for all the panties. Okay sorry, that probably came across a little snappy. But every time, every time... Thom. With a H." And his fans like me have to say pretty much the same. It's tiresome. Also tiresome is that now I've read Thom Jones's entire work - complete! Only three books of short stories. This is very unusual for me and does not bode well because it means that TJ hasn't published anything for 11 years. In the blurb here it says "TJ is working on his first novel". We know that can take a while, ask James Joyce or Henry (not Philip What's New Pussycat) Roth but still. I'm suspecting something's happened to TJ, something of a derailing nature.

Why is Thom so great? One thing is he's completely convincing about this ruff tuff guy stuff which is, usually, the very stuff I cross the street to avoid, being myself effete and dessicated and preferring an art gallery to a recon insert in Cambodia any day of the week. But TJ is all soldiers, boxers, adrenaline highs, blue collars, drugs, soldiers, boxers, testosterone aplenty, more drugs, women, recon, rehab, girlfriends cursing you to your face, alcoholic brawling, getting fired, waking up in a dumpster and more boxing after that. It's exhausting. But it's hilarious too. He has soul, he's a very emotional guy. In fact really, he's like the boxer that keeps wading through pain when he should have quit three rounds back. And you might not like boxing, you might hate it, but this guy you like, he reels you in, you get hooked, you walk in his shoes, you get left by his wife, his kids hate you, one more jab in the head and this sucker is mine, mine.

If anyone knows THom Jones, out there in America somewhere, tell him from me I'm waiting for the novel, or anything really. Anything will do.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thom Jones captures Dick-Lit, in a prolific way that is both thoughtful and ugly.

Every short story oozes a touch of masculinity and has the reader astonished that a former maintenance man for Iowa State not only wrote these amazing pieces, but also has been able to form a secure career in the literary world by doing so.

One of the best books I've ever read. Hands down.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

So after reading Intruders from the faber shorts I thought I would give another one a go - this time Sonny Liston was a friend of mine. As with nearly all the authors in this series I have come to the books with little or no previous experience of their work or style.

So what of this book - this really for me is the story of focus and determination but at the cost of all else. There is a lot I could say here but I would run the risk of breaking my own rules over spoilers enough to say that although I cannot identify with the life style and conditions I can over the total focus on achieving something but thinking what will happen beyond that.

I do get the feeling that the question "so what do I do next" leads on from this story and I think that we can all related to. These short books I think have (and there is no pun intended) the ability to punch above their weight and I think who ever choose the content have a real eye for a story.

[Peter Allum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stories of America’s social outcasts with heavy doses of sex, drugs, violence.

Jones, who authored three collections of short stories published between 1993 and 1997, looks back to the traumatic experience of the Vietnam War and the cynicism of the 1970s after the mind-altering drugs and free love of the '60s had curdled into coke-fueled parties and aimless sex. His writing explores the same bleak vein as the preceding “dirty realists” (Raymond Carver and others) and closely matches the sour take on the '70s of Boogie Nights (released 1997).

Jones’s characters are on the fringes of society: the grunts drafted to Vietnam, a second-tier boxer, the unemployed and unemployable, a slightly crazed public-school teacher, the residents of a state mental hospital. Many resort to alcohol and drugs to escape the boredom and limited opportunities of their lives, and their health issues are the same that Jones struggled with himself (depression, epilepsy, diabetes).

The stories feature protagonists lost in their own worlds, self-deluding, manic, even borderline insane. Their voices carry over to the third-party narration, so that the stories give the impression of Jones, the author, as performer, taking on the persona of his characters, seeing the world through their eyes. Reflecting the close identification between author and protagonist, the stories often seem as empty as the lives of the protagonists themselves: Jones is telling us, “This is a slice of life, take it or leave it…”

The strong critical acclaim in the 1990s for Jones’ short stories baffles me. Perhaps his warts-and-all tales of the ‘70s provided a welcome take on recent history. However, he is rarely read today, while Raymond Carver (to whom Jones had been compared) is an icon.

As a writer, Jones’ narrative voice sometimes wavers between the street language of his protagonists and a more literary tone. Thus, in a boxing story, we have the raw "This time around Kid Dynamite wasn’t listening to any more of Juan’s bullshit advice” followed by the more elegant "He didn’t deem himself college material…”. (Actually, if he was used language like “deem himself”, perhaps he really was college material.)

In a later story, a son complains of the sound of his mother’s painful, dry coughs with an overwrought simile: "To Matthew’s tender sensibilities it seemed that a crew of Northwest lumberjacks were ripping through California redwoods with seven-horsepower Husquauar chain saws.”

This hyperbole continues a page later when Matthew’s strep throat is describes as "akin to having your tonsils ripped out by the Inquisition’s ace torturing squad—red-hot irons and pincers and a holy relish for their gruesome duties.” Lines like these were probably more fun to write than to read.

Jones also seems happy to adopt clichéd similes. A mother is washing up. "She stabs at the fried egg on her china plate with a soap sponge. The eggs were harder than rocks” (Really? Genuinely harder than rocks?)

I groaned internally when in one story a hostile stare is described as “like a heat-seeking missile” and then double-groaned when, a few stories later in a fight, a fist connects to a chin, surprise, surprise,"like a heat-seeking missile”.

In the final story, Jones provides the uncomfortable description of the fictional Fox River as "a short nasty river … named after the tribe of Indians of which little was memorable except for the speed with which they folded after their first confrontation with the paleface.”

Jones was over 50 when this collection was published but the stories often seem lacking in depth and maturity. Jones had his schtick and was happy to be the bad boy from the ‘70s. Disappointing.

Biographical notes

Jones (1945-2016) was in the Marine Corps but given a medical discharge before his unit was deployed in Vietnam. He went back to college and graduated with an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1973. He worked for a Chicago advertising agency and then as a janitor, a position that gave him ample opportunity to read. He was “discovered” in his mid-40s when The New Yorker published one of his short stories in 1991; this was followed by publication of three collections of stories in 1993, 1995, and 1997. A further collection was published in 2018 shortly after his death.

Jones’s stories drew on his marine training (his Vietnam stories are notably acclaimed), his father’s career as boxer and his schizophrenia (he was institutionalized and later committed suicide), and Jones’s own struggles with depression, alcoholism, epilepsy, and diabetes (complications from which would lead to his death in 2016).

[John Pappas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know if Jones could sustain or replicate in his third collection the momentum he built in his staggering first book of stories, but he surpasses that knock-out collection with twelve new stories about a handful of Schopenhauer-addicted ne'er-do-wells and knuckleheads. There is a greater depth of character and more skillful deployment of tension and release at work in these stories. The sheer force of his first collection is tempered by defter story construction and pacing -- the stories are more seductive, more subtle, and less like brakeless trains heading down the tracks toward an inevitable horrible end. As a result, the stories are more impactful, lingering in the mind long after their end. Jones seems to stretch his legs a bit here, too -- many of the stories are longer, involve more characters and subplots, a greater emotional range, and some are even related, dealing with the same group of characters. Perhaps Jones was feeling out the prospects of a novel? The question is irrelevant -- what we have here is a dynamite collection, brutal and funny. Standout stories include "Tarantula," "Mouses," A Midnight Clear," and "You Cheated, You Lied."

[Andrew Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simply, a not my cup of tea. A set of twelve stories about the people living on margins of society.

One good quote from the story "Mouses"
Happiness is like the gold in the Yukon mines, found only now and then, as it were, by the caprices of chance. It comes rarely in chunks or boulders but most often in the tiniest grains. I'm a free-floater now, happy to take what little comes my way. A grain here, a grain there. What more can you ask for?

[Diego F. Cantero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voy a empezar por decir que entiendo el Culto que se le rinde a este loco. Ni recuerdo dónde leí dos o tres comentarios apasionados que me hicieron buscarle, pero sí recuerdo el culto y no voy a ser yo quien tire el cable a tierra.
En estos doce relatos, Jones, visita con insistencia los mismos lugares. El ring, Vietnam, hospitales psiquiátricos. Sus personajes suelen ir al límite y la violencia, drogas, enfermedades y demás accesorios son la moto donde te subes desde el primer párrafo de cada historia.
Pero lo más destacable es lo que Jones escribe sin palabras. Lo que sienten sus personajes o lo que tú sientes por lo que les pasa. Entre mucha miseria expuesta también leí sin leer, amor, amistad, fuerza, orgullo, paz.

La realidad, cruda, como no podía ser de otra manera. Pero con un rotundo resplandor debajo de toda la basura. Como no podía ser de otra manera.

[Mickdemaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cito dal risvolto di copertina: "Thom Jones ha fatto il pugile e il bidello, ha combattuto in Vietnam con i marines, Poi un pomeriggio del 1991 a 46 anni sale in camera da letto e in tredici ore scrive il suo primo racconto. In breve tempo diventa un eroe delle lettere americane: le più prestigiose riviste si contendono i suoi racconti,che per cinque anni consecutivi vengono inseriti nella raccolta delle Best America Short Stories...."
Questa piccola presentazione racconta molto di questo autore che Minimum Fax ha avuto il merito di far conoscere anche in Italia. Thom Jones parla di ciò che conosce, il ring, il fronte, i commilitoni, la scuola, e (sarei pronto a scommetterci) gli ospedali psichiatrici, tanto presenti da farmi sospettare un qualche tipo di frequentazione da parte dell'autore (stress post traumatico?)
I racconti, dodici, sono tutti belli e ben scritti. Tra i vari svettano per efficacia e ispirazione "Sonny Liston era mio amico", "Topi" e "Hai mentito, hai imbrogliato", nel quale l'autore oltre ad esplorare la struttura più classica della narrazione breve americana si avvicina ad una prosa più moderna che ha fatto tesoro della lezione di McInerney e Ellis. Sicuramente un autore da leggere se amate il genere, tenendo a mente che Jones ha tante esperienze di vita, scrive bene, ma questo non basta per diventare Carver o men che meno Bukowski.
Voto: 7,5

[🐴 🍖]

for me, some of this never rose above the level of just ok, & there were 2 pieces i would just as soon jettison altogether: "fields of purple" (a p embarrassing attempt at narrating in AAVE) & "you cheated, you lied" (like going on a x-country road trip w/ sid & nancy where somebody forgot the H). that 4-story stretch tho from 40 still @ home -> tarantula -> mouses -> midnight clear... hoo boy. stories w/ a beating heart & biting teeth like you'd never believe came outta an iowa workshop grad. check out the split-second of true pathos that's granted to the loathsome hammermeister following the pencil incident, or the way withheld info renders "midnight clear" equally a heartwarming xmas tale or prelude to a horror story. even w/ a couple D minuses in the mix this earns well over a passing grade. gotta peep more thom, it would theem

[Meg Hehir · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty devastating final sequence for such a short read

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew I had a book of short fiction by Thom Jones, and eventually I dug out a copy of The Pugilist at Rest which I have owned since 1995. I remember the book itself with its very black cover and a picture of US army helmets, but not the stories inside.

This short story was first published in a collection in 1998, although it perfectly captures the atmosphere of the 1960s when it was set. The central character, called Kid Dynamite, is a boxer. ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ is playing on the radio, which dates it to at least 1962 or after, and Jones was himself a boxer which is probably what gives the story the great depth of authenticity. In 1963 Jones would have been around 18, so I wonder how much of this story is drawing on memories and real experiences. It certainly has a real depth of atmosphere.

The boy is training hard, wanting to do better in a local competition than he did the year before. Getting through to the semi-finals he draws a bought against the man that beat him the year before. He becomes focused on how to beat the bigger stronger man.

In the middle of the story, Vic, the father of the Kid’s girlfriend Melanie, drives them to watch the boxer Sonny Liston training. He is preparing for a fight with Floyd Patterson, which again places the story in 1962. It allows the writer to describe a man who goes on to be world champion, his speed and his power, the compactness of his movements. For Kid Dynamite it is unlike anything he has seen before. A few years later Liston would lose his world title to Muhammad Ali.

Description plays a big part in this story. When Kid Dynamite goes on a run we hear a whole commentary of what he sees as he passes along. This use of description rises to a final crescendo in the fight that we are building towards. The boy is knocked to the ground early on, his head buzzing. In those few seconds there are pages of description, the roughness of the canvass, his family on their feet, his grandmother screaming in German for him to get up, a language he had never heard her use before. He hears a man shouting encouragement to his opponent but the voice is too small for such a big man. He sees that one of the buttons on the man’s shirt is hanging by a thread, and thinks “Mister, take that shirt off and put it on three more times, and the button is gone.” This focus on tiny, tiny details of his surrounding has nothing to do with the fight, yet at the same time everything. The boy has to feel and see all of this before he can get back to his feet.

The whole story has built up to this final fight scene, in the same way that the boy has trained toward it. We have shone a quick light on his family, his mother and step-father, his uncle and his girlfriend. A quick glimpse of all of them on our way to this finale.

And then, the night is over for Kid Dynamite. The cut under his eye is too bad to fight a second time and he cannot progress to the final of the competition. In the last line of the story everything changes. “Boxing was finally over and the real world, which had seemed so very far away all these years, was upon him.”

[Patrick Faller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven. "Tarantula" and "A Midnight Clear" stand at opposite ends of the sad-and-tender meets barely-restrained-rage spectrum, and showcase the depth of Jones's range as a writer, but they're overshadowed by the macho war stories and others; "I Love You, Sophia Western" shocks, as does "The Comforts of Home." These stories seem to express Jones's aesthetic more completely. I wanted to like the long story, "You Cheated, You Lied," but the narrator's tendency to reduce his sexual encounters to one-liners like "I dicked her in the closet," seems a little strange, a little too easy--a little like Jones lacked the writerly chops to focus us in on the strange, idiosyncratic details that comprise most sexual encounters and so tries to make us readers believe his character is too much a man's man, an avid reader himself, but of Schopenhauer and Playboy magazine. On another level, though, the preponderance of this sort of writing suggests that Jones condescends to his audience, offering them a slim reduction of characters he might have drawn somewhat more sympathetically, less the product of their deranged urges then as troubled individuals struggling and backsliding, recovering, agonizing, forgiving. The story nearly achieves this sort of sympathy. Nearly. The nibleness of the story's plot kept, which shifts from psychologist's office to mental ward to the sand-blasted shores of surfers' Hawaii, kept me reading, and suggests that Jones wants to take his characters into and out of their own hells. An earlier story, "Cold Snap," showcases this sort of momentum. The narrator is as troubled as many of the protagonists in "Sonny Liston," but unlike the narrator in "You Cheated, You Lied," the narrator in "Cold Snap" finds solace in caring for his younger sister, who wants badly for the narrator to snap out of his self-destructive bend so they can get on with trying to make a better life. The characters in "You Cheated, You Lied," most of which we get through the filter of the narrator, stand up as caricatures. It's hard to want to read the story as Jones intended--as the product of the imagination of a man subsumed by uncontrollable sexual urges, under the influence of a staggering cocktail of anti-depressants--when he's written so much more empathetically in earlier collections.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Thom Jones book I've read, and I was impressed. There's something really earthy about this writing, or maybe down to earth. It's tempting, because of his many boxing stories, to make a lot of boxing analogies about his writing, but I guess that'd be trite at this point. Still, the writing is really solid, and he does punch the hell out of his characters. No one has it easy; very few catch a break. But the stories aren't bleak; they can be quite funny.

Jones reminds me a little of Hemingway, a little of Raymond Carver, but he isn't really like either except that he's kind of a man's man writer. What I mean by that is, back when I worked at a bookstore, it was harder to recommend fiction to men than it was to women--some authors were just safer bets than others. Jones would be another safe one.

Teachers everywhere will feel satisfied by the story "Tarantula"--a vice principal jackass gets what he deserves. There's a series of stories about soldiers in Vietnam. Many of the characters in various stories have mental problems, abuse the same drugs, and wanted to be boxers--I found the title story particularly charming and well-done, regarding boxers.

I've read some reviews that say Jones's earlier stuff is better. We'll see.

[Kendall]

Found this book on a remainder table at the Book Revue in Huntington. The title rang a bell with me. I'd heard it mentioned somewhere before- I think. Not sure where though. I glanced through a few pages- and the writing looked pretty good. The blurbs on the back and the general look and feel of the book also sold me. His writing is fluid. Words- sentences- paragraphs- thoughts- and scenes for the most part flow smoothly along. The content is a little dark and rough around the edges. One of the stories is about a group of marines heading down to Mexico to get drunk and laid before shipping out to Vietnam. There's some pretty crass shit in this story. In another story- a high school kid with emotional problems ends up giving a club-footed pedophile (his boss) a blow job for money. Major themes that recur throughout the stories include: Boxing- Vietnam- Sex- depression and the drugs associated with depression- and being short. If the subject matter is enough to make you cringe sometimes- Jones's skill at crafting a story is enough to make that discomfort all worthwhile.

[Axel Ainglish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shockingly wide registry, this author leads you from black humour to sheer poetry in his always good, some very interesting short stories. a genre in which, really, he excells. Speaking about Thom Jones implies Literature with capital letters, have known no one not liking it after reading. On the contrary, we all keep waiting new books about this very singular writer. Having written only three, this ex marine, ex boxer winner of a hundred and fifty K.O. victories, one would say before reading him, did not fulfilla at all, a classic writer profile. Some of his writing may clearly be based upon his own hard live experiences, other must be fruit of his brilliant imagination. An action writer, as his life has been, his dialogues and characters makes you live his stories as if you were there, watching what is going on. Knows too well what he is writing about, and so, provides some good information too about war, boxing, drugs, medicine and anything concerning what he may be telling about. Really, could mention others, but am sure he will become a classic of the late twentieth century. You will love it and become fond of.

[Adrian Alvarez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was disappointing. After reading Jones' earlier collection, The Pugilist at Rest, and being completely blown away, this one, his latest collection of short stories, felt stunted. Sadly, Thom Jones doesn't seem to be growing as an artist. The result is a lot of telling without showing, the repetition of earlier themes or characters without any new development, and a list of unlikable characters paralytically unable to change. Although there are some fine stories here (I liked "40, Still at Home," "Tarantula," and "Mouses" a great deal) others, like "A Midnight Clear" and particularly the last story "You Cheated, You Lied" evidenced (to me, anyway) a writer unable to commit to developing a novel. Frustrating.

Overall, this is still a worthwhile collection, especially if you're already familiar with Jones' writing. When he's writing hot, his storytelling is masterful.

[Stephen J. Golds · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the ‘Faber Stories’ one shot editions for the short story Sonny Liston was a Friend of Mine.

It’s a coming of age story of a young welter weight boxer who is training for the fight of his life.

The writing here isn’t as slick as Thom Jones’ previous work and I didn’t enjoy it as much but the story overall is a poignant, interesting, gritty and realistic yarn of a young boxer.
3.5

Next time, I’ll read this title’s collection of stories.

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Jones's world is as atmospheric as a song by Bob Dylan or Leonard or Tom Waits...Spending time with Jones's characters battle-worn eccentrics leaves you feeling bruised but also elated."
-Kate Sekules, Salon

[Joseph Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine by Thom Jones. This is a collection of short stories mostly about self destructive and down on their luck protagonist. I actually found most of the stories depressing and the constant negative outcomes annoying after awhile.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giddy with excitement, they compared inscriptions. Kid Dynamite's photo was signed, "To the Kid, from your friend, Sonny Liston."

Kid Dynamite beamed at the inscription like it was the writ of God. "Sonny liston is a friend of mine," he said.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost as good as Pugilist, better than Cold Snap. Why did he stop after those three collections?

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite of the Faber Stories, but I liked it enough to re-read it.

[Iz Rob Rho · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate watching boxing but apparently like reading about it

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amateur teen boxer Kid Dynamite doesn’t know quite what he wants to do in life just yet - continue with school, get a job, marry his girl Melanie? - but he knows what he wants in the short-term: beat Louis Reine, the kid who beat him last year, in his next boxing match.

This is my first time reading Thom Jones (I’m gonna refrain from making the obvious joke as I’m sure it’s not unusual to make fun of his name - dammit!) and I was pleasantly surprised to find his short story, Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine, was pretty decent.

We get a good idea of who Kid Dynamite is and his world - the tension with his stepfather, his sweet relationship with Melanie - as well as the larger story, which is a coming-of-age tale, where he’s aware that he’s not good enough to be a professional boxer and that he’s going to have to decide what to do instead of this; but also that he’s too obsessed with boxing at this moment in time to give it up.

I loved the scene where Kid Dynamite goes to watch Sonny Liston train for his upcoming fight with Floyd Patterson (which he would win to become heavyweight champion of the world) as it’s a vivid portrait of the soon-to-be champ. I don’t know if Jones ever met him but he convincingly brings Liston to life, conveying his sheer power beautifully as well as his personality when he briefly jokes with Kid Dynamite after the session.

You also get a sense of the doom associated with boxing - Kid Dynamite’s father, who used to box, is in the nuthouse (which was also the fate of Jones’ father), foreshadowing Liston’s own sad, premature demise a few years later. The ending feels a little too neat but it’s also a happy one for Kid Dynamite, not just because of the result of his fight, but because his fate is going to be different from those who stick with the brutal sport.

As well-written as the story is, it’s missing a certain something to really stand out - a surprise element and/or a unique scene or character. Maybe it’s the limitation of the subject matter but all boxing stories to me seem to gel together into the same kind of story. But also, stories this well-written and rounded feel artificial and hollow - they’re too safe, in a way literary stories can be - and that holds it back from really connecting with the reader; you’re always aware that you’re reading a made-up story so you never really lose yourself in it. I got an idea of who Kid Dynamite is but never saw him as a person, just a contrived character in a piece of fiction.

Still, Thom Jones clearly knew how to write and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine is a solid short story about boxing. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in the subject but, also, even if you are, it’s nothing so essential that you’re missing anything by not reading it either.

[Tayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been on a bit of a Thom Jones bender of late, powering through in succession Pugilist (for like the third time), Cold Snap, and now Sonny Liston, so doubtlessly my rating is effected by that. There's only so much Tom Jones a man can take in succession before the black lights start sparking up behind the eyes. It's like getting into one too many boxing rounds, time to tap out. But that aside, this collection, which I didn't feel was his best, but is still classic Jones, pulls its punches (or doesn't pull its punches, whichever the boxing metaphor is) and comes in for some little side-jabs, the occasional uppercut which leaves you floored and reeling, which is to say, the magic is still there, particularly in stories like My Heroic Mythic Journey (which is like Thom Jones, distilled) and A Run Through The Jungle. But it's the quirky stories like Mouses and 40, Still At Home, and Tarantula where he deviates from the norm of boxers and soldiers, and moves into strange new territory, where this collection really comes into its own. It's really probably a 4-star collection, but what the hell. Loses points for a shitty title and cover.

[Alec]

#4
While Gerber sat at the ready with the .60, Hollywood yanked my boots off — fractures in both ankles. Hollywood popped me with painkiller and I just kept thinking of what he said on his third day in-country, “What's a rhinocer-rose?”

#10
You want to know what it feels like to get a shot with a .38? Have for guys spread-eagle you against a brick wall and let five-time pro-bowler Ricky Waters do a fifteen-yard sprint and spear you in the chest with his Seattle Seahawks’ football helmet.

#12
“Whatcha reading?” Molly said in a jocular fashion. Her voice was husky. I set my book aside and watched her shake a Lucky Strike from the pocket of her cardigan sweater. She lit it with a man-sized Zippo.
“Schopenhauer, a biography,” I said.

[Graham Leger · Rating 5 out of 5]

It does a great job of expressing the highs and lows of life. At points its brutal and disgusting then it's blissful and charming.

Multiple short stories left me feeling seriously disturbed and disgusted but that's what makes the book feel so real. As difficult as it is to admit, it wouldn't be the same without these parts.

The final story 'You Cheated, You Lied' is a great example the roller coaster of emotions that this book takes you though. At times it's extremely charming and sweet, soon you're so disgusted you feel like you got punched in the stomach, then its in invigorating, then depressing, and a bit hopeful.

It felt so real at points I couldn't help but feel grateful that I just reading the book and not living it.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 3 out of 5]

in terms of what this short story achieved in about 48 pages this was a really great piece of writing.

the character of kid dynamite was portrayed so vividly within such a short amount of pages. his sheer determination and stubbornness really came through strong.

the short story’s arc worked really well, you gained insight into the life of not just the main character but his family and community too.

personally i would have liked a bit less dialogue and a bit more about our main characters life, i dropped a further star due to use of some language that isn’t appropriate today.

[El Viejo Mochales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Son maravillosos todos los relatos. Quizás, el único que flaquea un poquito con respecto a los otros es el que da título al libro, el primero. Pero es que son tan buenos los demás. Lástima que en espaňol no se puedan conseguir más. Yo encontré este -editado por El Aleph y con una portada fea, fea- en un anticuario. No conocía entonces a Thom Jones pero me he quedado con ganas de leer más. Gran libro, sí seňor.

[CJ Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is staggeringly good. The subject matter veers all over the place, and the author's voice is as compelling of any in the last 30 years that I have encountered.

Particularly impressive are the scenes of everyday life, which are reminiscent of a languid and elegant art house movie...and the violence. The presentation of war from a grunt's eye is staggering.

The title piece has an impact like little else.