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A review by tommooney
The Fighter by Michael Farris Smith
4.0
Mean and tender, brutal and gentle, Michael Farris Smith's new novel is really a superb read.
I read and enjoyed Desperation Road but he takes his writing to a new level with The Fighter. Tighter and more focussed, it follows Jack Boucher, an aging cage fighter with a long list of debts and an even longer list of enemies. Trying to win enough cash to clear his debts and win back the house left to him by his foster mother, Jack takes one last, dangerous, bout.
Farris Smith has, in Boucher, created an intruiging protaganist, a flawed but sympathetic man who has met all of life's hard knocks with an iron fist. But his time at the top is well past and he is in a battle to save both his body and his mind.
Beautifully written and expertly plotted, The Fighter reads like a mash-up of Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. I liked it very much.
I read and enjoyed Desperation Road but he takes his writing to a new level with The Fighter. Tighter and more focussed, it follows Jack Boucher, an aging cage fighter with a long list of debts and an even longer list of enemies. Trying to win enough cash to clear his debts and win back the house left to him by his foster mother, Jack takes one last, dangerous, bout.
Farris Smith has, in Boucher, created an intruiging protaganist, a flawed but sympathetic man who has met all of life's hard knocks with an iron fist. But his time at the top is well past and he is in a battle to save both his body and his mind.
Beautifully written and expertly plotted, The Fighter reads like a mash-up of Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. I liked it very much.