Customer Reviews

The Real McCoy

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to agree with some of the other reviewers here who opine that while Strauss definitely has a way with words, this novel left me wanting a little more. The book presents a fictionalized account of the fighter "Kid McCoy", a bare-knuckles brawler and scam artist from the beginning of the 20th century. I thought the novel would paint a real vivid picture of turn-of-the-century big city life, but ultimately the novel lost steam amid crazy twists and turns of the plot, until its wacky ending.

The scenes of young Virgil starting out his career and assuming his identity (as "McCOy") on a fateful train trip were the highlight for me, as well as his curious first marriage to a poor midwestern girl who never had a clue what made her husband tick. In that respect she was kind of like the reader, since we were similarly in the dark surrounding most of McCoy's motivations. Once McCoy made it to the big time (with his bizarre Oriental side-kick Johnny Gold), I rapidly lost interest.

Had the novel given a better glimpse of New York City at the turn of the century, rather than an occasional reference to Madison Square Garden or a famous hotel, I might have enjoyed it more just for the setting. Instead, while often impressed at Strauss' writing style, I found the book to be a pretty forgettable tale written by a talented author yet to fully hit his stride.

Darrin Strauss's second foray into historical fiction is much like his first, (CHANG AND ENG) taking the bare bones of a true story and then totally changing it to comment on other aspects of human nature. Virgil Selby starts out as a young man in search of something more than life is offering him. By taking on the identity of a fighter named Kid McCoy and following the advice of a Chinese flim-flam artist named Johnnie Gold; he sets out to make himself into a great man. The real problem is that Virgil's new life is based on a lie and of course it falls apart. Sort of a rags to riches to rags tale that could have been so much better if Strauss had stayed closer to McCoy's actual life; which fans of boxing history know had more than a few twists and turns to it, or at least skipped the ridiculous character of Johnnie Gold, who is so over the top in his Machiavellian plans that he is seen as blatantly unbelievable. Strauss is most successful at portraying McCoy's love for Susan Fields, an actress, who McCoy is constantly winning back after pushing her from his life with his lies. Strauss does a nice job recreating the rural and urban America of the early twentieth century, but Johnnie Gold and the finish with McCoy's plan for one last score are just so far-fetched they distract from the other pleasures of the novel. An interesting read, but like CHANG AND ENG, the idea for the novel is better than the execution.

Strauss is seriously talented, possibly the best young writer in America (at least of the writers that I've read). His deadpan style is hilarious and poignant at the same time. His command is evident in every sentence. After Chang and Eng (his last book), I had high expectations, which McCoy surpassed. If Strauss continues to improve at this rate, I think he will become one of the greats.

Darin Strauss is a new writer that is growing more important with each book. His first novel, CHANG AND ENG, mingled history with fanstasy, seducing us with the bizarre but wholly credible tale of the lives of Siamese twins. In THE REAL MCCOY he has again demonstrated that he has few peers in the genre of history manipulation in his semi-biographical novel of a midwestern kid who dreamed himself into the champion boxer of the 1900s. I have never enjoyed the sport of boxing or stories about boxing and it was only my lingering excitement after reading CHANG AND ENG that encouraged me to read this book. But the surprise is that this is not a biography of a boxer. This brilliantly written, cativatingly interesting book is about flimflam artists, about the individual's identity in context with his times, about the question of reality versus fantasy. But even more than that it is a 'documentation' of the idiosyncrasies of this strange country America at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. Created like a richly painted mural that extends from Indiana to Manhattan, Darin Strauss has sensitively examined this vast melting pot of a nation and in doing so allows us to learn much about our past that makes our present more comprehensible, especially in light of the current globalization of terror and the dangers of insular misunderstandings. But as if this book isn't entertaining enough simply on the basis of a contemporary novel, Strauss throws us a curve a la Guy de Maupassant for an ending. Only after some re-reading of certain important chapters and passages can we as readers appreciate the journey Strayuss has created.

To say more would be to diminish the rewards for the prople who have not yet had the privilege of this novel. Darin Strauss is a meaty, graceful, gifted wordsmith whose every page contains sheer virtuosity. BRAVO!

The first thing that struck me about this book is the tone. It immediately brought to mind an old-time radio announcer--pitch-perfect for this fictionalized saga of Kid McCoy, a scrawny prizefighter from the late 1800s and early 1900s. These are pre-radio times, though, and the details of the time and place transport the reader from dreary small-town Indiana to backstreet St. Louis to the seediest areas of New York and beyond. The Kid's real name is Virgil Selby, but he takes the name McCoy from another boxer who dies from injuries incurred in a fight. The "new" McCoy is more colorful than Chang and Eng in Strauss's earlier book, as he's a flimflam artist on the side. (I love that word, and this book is full of others that evoke the era. I found myself singing "Mack the Knife" while reading it, because the setting was so tawdry--another good word.) In fact, the cons that he performs with his fat Chinese mentor, Johnnie Gold, are some of the most entertaining scenes in the book. The irony is that the term "the real McCoy" may have referred to Kid McCoy, but in the book his life is a complete sham; he's a liar and a bigamist and even obtains his welterweight title by scamming his opponent. Likeable he is not, but I couldn't help hoping that he would eventually straighten himself out so that he could hang on to his true love, Susan Fields. As in Chang and Eng, Strauss embellishes the lives of historical characters and leaves us wondering what's true and what's not. In this case, I think that very little is true, but who cares?

The Real McCoy is a fictionalized account of a turn-of-the century boxing champ and flim flam man who is possibly the source of the phrase, he's the real McCoy.
Author Darin Strauss writes with a unique style that will not appeal to all readers. Indeed sometimes I felt that style was winning over substance and I wished for a more straightforward narrative. In the end I wasn't quite sure all the wonderful parts of the book equally a fully realized whole. I definitely would have liked the book to have taken a different turn at the end.
All that said, this is a delightful story that serves as a wonderful allegory both for what Strauss calls '"artificiality" and on following one's destiny as opposed to shaping it.
The early 1900's is a rich area for fiction, with so much we think of as modern (cars, telephones, movies) just developing and so much of the old world still ubiquitous (carriages still drawn by horses, bare knuckle boxing). Strauss takes advantage of these opportunities and the characters that then abounded. He tells the story of young Virgil Selby who leaves small town Indiana, assuming another's identify to both box and swindle. He meets and marries many women, one of whom is actually the love of his life.
I had a few problems with the story but it's impossible to not like a book that has sentences like this: "Ryan went down like an old wino paid a dollar to perform Hamlet's death scene." Great stuff, that!

I just read this book in paperback, and, man, is it wonderful. I heard of the author's book "Chang and Eng," but I haven't read that one. I will now. The Real McCoy is full of great writing, and fun drama. One of the funniest, yet ultimately most moving books, I've read in a long time.

Strauss has come a long way sice "Chang and Eng," good as that book was. "The Real McCoy" has a fun, fleet plot full of cons and doublecons and a very moving, unlikely little love story about a scrappy boxer and a famous stage actress--plus it asks some interesting questions about identity and fame, etc. It's a real triumph and further proof that Strauss is one of the most interesting, inventive novelists of the 30something generation.

This is a brilliant follow-up to Strauss' last masterwork -- it's even better than "Chang and Eng." This guy has a real sense of style. It's fun, and beautifully written.

I read this one directly after Chang and Eng, and as those are Strauss' only two books, I feel a comparison is in order. While Chang and Eng did prove to be an enjoyable read, I found the constant attempts at historically relevant simile ("her eyes were bluer than the Mekong [river] had ever been") somewhat trying. Plotwise, it was solid. Stylistically, I felt it was cornball. In "The Real McCoy," the exaggerated similes are back with a vengeance ("his voice was deep and dark like a thief's pocket"), but here their purpose is more clear. Strauss is using them to create a precise portrait of an exaggerated time, in which things were not big but "as huge and weighty as a pregnant hippo," in which girls were not pretty but "as gorgeous and glorius as a mountain of gold," etc. These are extreme characters, con men, who make a living through their usage of hyperbole. Doesn't it make sense that the prose should reflect that? It does, and with the stylistic question out of the way, I feel no shame in informing you that the plot of TRM is just as gripping, rollicking, and as fired up with historical excitement as Chang and Eng, if not more so. Enjoy.