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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Knockout First Book- MUST READ, January 28, 2006
When you see a book by a young new author has received acclaim from literary heavyweights like Thom Jones, Chuck Palahniuk, and Bret Easton Ellis (and Clive Barker, and Peter Straub, and...well, you get my point), you may tend, like me, to be initially excited but then approach the work with an air of guarded skepticism. After all, we live in an era of disproportionate hype where talk show hosts sell us fraudulent memoirs and publishers care more about marketing platforms than a book's content.
But please, drop your guard this time. Forget the hype. Just buy this book and read the whirlwind opener (also titled "Rust and Bone") and try to tell me this Davidson guy isn't the real deal. And realize that the "hype" is anything but- people are excited because Craig Davidson has delivered an utter knockout of a first book.
The cover might indicate that this is a collection of hard-edged pugilistic tales, but Davidson's range goes far beyond the confines of the ring. In fact, only three of the stories deal centrally with organized combat (boxing, dog fighting, kickboxing) and Davidson proves adept at putting you right in the middle of the sweat and fatigue, the blood and the shattered bones. His delivery of the fight material is a wonderful mesh of passion and sharp technical description that had me cringing one moment, thrilled the next. And in each of those stories there are emotional conflicts that make those battles in the ring mean so much more than the pounding of flesh on flesh.
The other stories deal out different shades of conflict- a man's desire to live vicariously through his son while battling alcoholism, a man coping with losing a limb to a killer whale, magician's children dealing with an absent father, a sex addict coming to terms with his desires, and a repo man trying to reclaim the wife he's losing to a degenerative illness. Each deals with its characters in a way that renders them surprisingly sympathetic. Two of the stories, "Rust and Bone" and "On Sleepless Roads," were so emotionally effective that they lingered in my mind days after reading them.
Davidson's prose is lean and efficient with the occasional stylistic flourish (in particular when describing settings) and his story setups are intriguing. His characters-the husbands and wives and brawlers and strugglers- have heart. And the sense of hope in defiance of all struggle that Davidson leaves you with make this a Must Read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Familiar Turf with Some Sparkling Moments, January 15, 2007
This review is from: Rust and Bone: Stories (Paperback)
Canadian writer Davidson kicks the literary door down with this debut short story collection, which features tough-guy topics as boxing, dog fighting, mangled bodies, sexual addiction, and repo men. The results are rather hit or miss, with some of the stories grittily effective and others wandering their way to weak endings. Five of these previous appeared in Canadian lit journals "The Fiddlehead", "Event", and "Prairie Fire", and the stories are mostly set in Ontario, a locale fairly interchangeable with the upper midwestern U.S.
In general, the best bits of writing occur in those stories in which Davidson is able to show off his skills at writing combat. The title story has some particularly vivid parts, depicting a bare-knuckles fighter who earns his living on an illegal underground circuit. I don't find boxing particularly interesting, but Davidson's blow by blow account of a fight is riveting. In "Life in the Flesh," a boxer who once killed a man in a fight now lives in Thailand where he trains promising boxers sent to him from the States. When a cocky kid shows up in Bangkok, the trainer tries to keep him focused but can't keep him from taking on a local Muay Thai champ. Again, the setup isn't the greatest material, Davidson veers awfully close to the stereotype of Bangkok, but the fight itself is great stuff. "A Mean Utility" delves into the underworld of dog fighting via two unexpected protagonists -- a middle-class white advertising executive and his wife. Experiencing fertility problems, they pour all their attention into their dogs, and the man pushes a young dog into a fight, only to see every father's nightmare unfold before his eyes.
Other stories are rather less compelling. "The Rifleman" is a riff on the typical fanatical father who pushes his son to become a basketball star. The alcoholic father is utterly pathetic, and his son's disdain oozes from the page. "Rocket Ride" is about a young man bitter about losing his leg while working at a marine park, but just peters out. "Friction" is thirty aimless pages about a man whose sexual addiction cost him his family and job, and has drifted into the porn industry and therapy groups. The longest story is "The Apprentice's Guide to Modern Magic," which examines a pair of siblings whose magician father abandoned them as children. And of course, when they track him down years later, as adults, satisfaction and closure prove difficult to come by.
The best complete story is "On Sleepless Roads," in which a sad man leaves his disabled wife at home to work his repo man gig. When he shows up to take an RV one night, he encounters the ad executive from "A Mean Utility", now fallen on tough times. Rather bizarrely, the ad exec is trying to film a children's TV show in his garage, using live animals. The odd couple bond over a night of beers and filming, and the story ends with the kind of beautiful and darkly comic moment that one wishes were more present in the rest of the stories. On the whole, while there are sparkling moments here and there, much of the collection feels like warmed over Chuck Palahniuk -- and indeed, Palahniuk provides a suitable cover blurb, with Thom Jones, Bret Easton Ellis, and Peter Straub weighing in on the back. And in fact, that provides a pretty good indication of the intended audience for this collection.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"All I'm saying is, I'm no monster, okay?", November 16, 2006
This review is from: Rust and Bone: Stories (Paperback)
The title story sets the tone for the collection, a brilliant juxtaposition of nature's raw beauty with the harsh reality of the cost of living in the real world. In "Rust and Bone", a young prize fighter takes the punches, throwing himself into the ring, learning over the years the lure and occasional rewards of the fighter's life, disciplined and self-aware. It is unexpected loss that knocks him to his knees, his tough spirit brought low from that which he cannot control, a permanent scar that sears his soul.
A father's lifelong obsession with his talented son's basketball skills defines their relationship in "The Rifleman", the father relentless as he pushes his son toward greatness. Unfortunately, the father's drunkenness overrides everything, turning the relationship into a parody, the son angling away from his father's boozy interference, the man left babbling in a haze of memories and rationalization. The reader cannot help but squirm with discomfort, the sour breath of the father an ill wind of failure.
"A Mean Utility" is arguably one of the tougher stories, providing some harsh details of dog fighting as one man's means of comprehending fatherhood. Filled with a particular brutality, the man's comprehension is bathed in the blood of violence, an arena inhabited by a breed of humanity that is disturbing. The stories don't get any easier, Davidson taking bites out of life, spitting them back with impunity, in prose that is both difficult to read and masterfully written, a Bosch painting in language, challenging the reader not to look away. Very few writers have the skill to blend ugliness with everyday events, lifting his protagonists out of their comfort zones toward personal revelation. This collection certainly isn't for the faint of heart, but for anyone tough enough to persevere, Rust and Bone is quite an accomplishment. Luan Gaines/2006.
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