Jones, Thom

The Pugilist at Rest: Stories

Thom Jones's first collection of stories is a revelation. In prose that sounds like nobody else, Jones channels a variety of distinctively different voices, from the lustful book editor of "Unchain My Heart" to the epileptic, amnesiac adman of the Dostoevskian fable "A White Horse." There's not a miss among these tales, but two in particular stand out: the title story, about a boxer and Vietnam vet who has plumbed the vicious depths of his own soul, and the almost unbearably intense chronicle of a woman fighting a losing battle with cancer, "I Want to Live!" "The world is replete with badness," says the aging fighter of "A Pugilist at Rest"; yet, as the narrator of "I Want to Live!" discovers, there is nothing stronger than the human will to go on, to persist--even in the face of the hell that exists right here on earth. It's not all gloom, doom, and napalm, however. There's also the surreal, Gogol-esque humor of "The Black Lights," in which the pysch-ward protagonist insists his only problem is epilepsy, yet hallucinates a giant, shuddering rabbit caught under his bed at night ("It's that rabbit on the Br'er Rabbit molasses jar. That rabbit with buckles on his shoes! Bow tie. Yaller teeth! Yaller! Yaller!") Then, too, Jones creates images of startling, surreal clarity amid the horror, like the dying lieutenant who remains on one knee even after being shot, "his remaining arm extended out to the enemy, palm upward in the soulful, heartrending gesture of Al Jolson doing a rendition of 'Mammy.'" Take a decidedly grim world-view, add a dose of existential slapstick, some Schopenhauer, an encyclopedic knowledge of pharmaceuticals, and a soundtrack by the Doors, and you have what may be the darkest, funniest, most urgent fictional debut in years. --Mary Park

An acclaimed, award-winning collection of stories moves from the combat zones of Vietnam, and their personal consequences, to a suburban home afflicted by cancer, to hallucinations in Bombay, and to other combat zones. Reprint. QPB Alt. NYT.

Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine: Stories

Welcome back to the world of boot camp, boxing gyms, psych wards, and pharmaceutical highs. Once again, Thom Jones seems less to write fiction than to allow his characters to pour their stories directly into the reader's ear. Here the cast includes some of the usual suspects--jittery fighters, Marines, Vietnam vets--as well as some new but equally quirky voices, from a nebbishy vice principal to a 92-year-old woman. First seen in Jones's debut collection, The Pugilist at Rest, the crack Marine recon team Break On Thru makes several more sorties--most notably in "Fields of Purple Forever," in which the civilian Sergeant Ondine takes up swimming much the same way Odysseus, say, took up sailing: "Ondine a night swimmer and he all over the night. Captain of the night. I swim in the fields of purple. Nothing and no one can harm me forever." "Tarantula" chronicles the rise and fall of John Harold Hammermeister, vice principal of W.E.B. Du Bois High School, where the students fail to be impressed by his caged spider and the frustrated janitors prove his undoing. "My Heroic Mythic Journey" follows the downward career arc of its boxer protagonist, who becomes featherweight champion of the world only to fall for a "bleach-bottle blond with a cheating heart" and a loaded .38. Most winning of all is the elderly narrator of "Daddy's Girl," who manages to preserve her faith even with two dead husbands, countless family tragedies, and eyelids growing up into her eyes: "You have to believe like a little child. Believe it because it's impossible." Only the overlong concluding story, "You Cheated, You Lied," disappoints; as chaotic as the main characters' mood swings, it follows two crazy teenagers in love and off their medication. But this tale is an exception in an otherwise noteworthy collection. Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine only confirms Jones's place as one of the most original American writers at work today. --Mary Park

A dozen powerful, often wickedly funny stories from the critically acclaimed author of "Cold Snap" and "Pugilist at Rest", a National Book Award finalist. Excerpted in "Harper's" and "The New Yorker".

Cold Snap: Stories

Thom Jones may be one of the few authors whose acknowledgments thank not only his dog, wife, and agent, but also Wyeth/Ayerst Laboratories and Stuart Pharmaceuticals, manufacturers of Effexor and Elavil--"drugs so good they feel illegal." Likewise, Cold Snap, Jones's second volume of short fiction, is so good these stories feel (but thankfully are not) illegal. In typically manic style they draw tragicomic portraits of boxers, Marines, and other assorted tough-guy types--even, in "Rocketfire Red," a part-Aborigine surfer girl turned drag racer and international model. Pitchman extraordinaire Ad Magic from The Pugilist at Rest returns, writing fraudulent but devastatingly effective direct-mail appeals for Global Aid even as he loses his mind on the combined effects of Dexedrine, paregoric, malaria, and a thumb smashed by Rwandan soldiers. In "Way Down Deep in the Jungle," another Africa story, cynical Dr. Koestler's baboon absconds with an entire bottle of whiskey, then entertains the natives with shockingly accurate imitations of the American smoking, masturbating, and moving his bowels. A plastic surgeon boxes his way through a fatal heart attack in "Ooh Baby Baby"; a diabetic with an amputated foot feeds a black widow spider in "Pickpocket"; the young Marine of "Pot Shack" compounds his foolishness in joining up ("Why did you join? Why did you join? Etc. Why did you fucking join?") by volunteering for recon, "where they take awful to a new level." It's the kind of fictional universe in which a manic doctor plays Russian roulette to cheer himself up, and the result is somehow, improbably, funny. But these stories go well beyond whistling in the dark. They are in fact a way to hold our 20th-century demons at bay, as the epigraph from 1 Samuel suggests: "Seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre: and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well." May we all be well, and may Thom Jones play on. --Mary Park

It is rare for the short story as a form to accommodate so much pure dialog.... Mr. Jones immerses us in his characters' obsessions then draws back with disconcerting swiftness to suggest that all along we've been witnessing human folly through a telescopic lens.

Playboy's College Fiction: A Collection of 21 Years of Contest Winners

For more than 50 years Playboy has published fiction by some of the biggest names in the field–Steinbeck, García Márquez, Gordimer, Bellow, Smiley–the list goes on and on. And since 1986, the magazine has sponsored its now famous College Fiction Contest, which annually receives thousands of entries from aspiring writers who seek the top prize: publication in the magazine’s October issue. Winners have represented schools large and small, public and private, from all over North America – the universities of Alabama, Virginia, Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Southern California; San Francisco State, Rutgers, M.I.T., Penn, Brown, Columbia, West Virginia’s Potomac State College, and Trent University in Ontario. In some cases winners have bested runners-up, who have gone on to achieve literary fame and fortune, such as A.M. Homes and Pam Houston.
The most important aspect of this diverse collection of stories is the one attribute that they all have in common: each is a stellar example of the short form written by an author who was still in school. Readers of fiction, writers of fiction, and teachers of fiction will find this entertaining and satisfying compendium to be unique and unrivaled, and an important addition to any bookshelf of contemporary literature. Enhancing this volume will be updated information on each contributor: the stories behind the writing of their stories, and how winning the College Fiction Contest has influenced their lives.

The Pugilist at Rest

Way Down Deep

The Pugilist at Rest