Customer Reviews

Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I can't believe this book got some luke-warm readers' reviews here! Well I for one ate it up. I'm very impressed by this writer. He is one of those writers that makes me feel amazed that I am alive while he is actually producing these wonders. My only criticism of this book is a tiny one-- i felt disappointed in "A Run Through the Jungle" when Jones felt it necessary to point out the karmic significance of the fiery death of the road-runner killer. I just felt he should have had a bit more confidence in his readers' abilities to make that connection on their own. But that's it- my only complaint. Other than that- WOW! This book is incredibly well-written and the characters are amazing. Jones is a huge huge talent and i am certain that there will be many many a book report assigned on his work in future high-school/college English classes.

This new story collection shows a huge talent, cruising steadily at the height of his powers, three books in and still going strong. Easily as deft and accomplished as his previous high-water mark, Pugilist At Rest, this book seizes you with vividly drawn characters and the habit-forming tempos of Jones' brilliant, un-flowery prose. One of the only writers around who possesses the quintessentially American combination of being a seasoned, masterly stylist and also compulsively readable, Thom Jones is not only good, but he's good FOR you. And if you've come to expect this from him, then this book will in no respect let you down. Sonny Liston Was A Friend of Mine is Thom Jones being really ON. Some of the stories in this collection feature characters that, if you've read Jones' other two books (and, trust me, you should), you will have seen before. And you'll be glad they're back, they're some of Jones' sharpest creations. That Thom Jones languishes in a nether-world between (relative) obscurity and mass popularity while certain American authors without Jones' skill and without Jones' robust inventiveness sell inferior books by the truckload, is a travesty. This darling of the critics is one who truly does deserve the wide readership that other, lesser writers enjoy. If you've not read any Thom Jones before, what can I tell you? It's all good, and this is as perfect a place to start as any. For fireball prose that hits like a hammer yet cuts finer than a razor, Thom Jones is peerless.

Thom Jones' stories resist easy classification, and merely recapping the action of even a few does him a disservice. However those unfamiliar with his work will get a strong sense of his story-telling powers simply by reading the title story in this, his latest collection.

That story has the peculiar gem-like perfection of some of Hemingway's best, although I don't mean to suggest that Jones in any way mimicks Hemingway's style, except in the sense that he gains power by leaving details out.

Jones' hardboiled look at a Golden Gloves boxer whose "career" ends shortly after it begins does more than sharply catalog the rounds of training, the fear and exultation in the ring and the physical pain of boxing. It suggests a way of life ending and a new one beginning. Although we leave him late in his teenage years, it's easy to envision the protagonist at 30 on a barstool, hunched over a beer and confiding to a stranger the words of the story's title.

In its unsentimental look at amateur boxing, the story recalls Leonard Gardner's classic "Fat City," but the other stories range far beyond the ring, into mental wards, lonely apartments and grimy film projection booths. This is strong stuff, but Jones rarely hits a false note. "Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine" is a worthy successor to the equally well-done "Cold Snap" and "The Pugilist at Rest."

I gave "Cold Snap" only three stars because of what I saw as a creeping political correctness marring the veracity of the storytelling. This book is a five star wonder. Jones has a few flaws, still. (The vulgarity of the dialogue loses its edge because it is so omnipresent.) But I was breathless while reading these stories. We're in the presence of a potential giant, in the Hemingway sense, here. The stories actually have meaning. They don't spend half the prose on paying obesiance to modern schools of feminist and critical thought. They're a phenomenon in that they succeed largely because they refuse to do so. They're about our fathers, mothers, ourselves. Real people, real world, real ache and redemption. After a decade which has promulgated the most politically dogmatic prose since Stalin (nearly every novel has been about racism, sexism, or the virtue of homosexuality), this is magically liberating stuff.

The crazy science of Thom Jones is mesmerizing - blunt, strangely humorous and entirely off the wall. Great imagery and soul in this mean little collection - every story its own plausibly neurotic universe. "Mouses," "Tarantula," "I love you, Sophie Western" and the title story delivered the most punch for my money, but all dug deeply, relentlessly into the human drama of misfits, miscalculations and private lunacy. Fun, fun read.

If any reader doubts that Thom Jones is the best fiction writer in America, please read the story "Mouses" from "Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine." Put away your agenda drums and your preconceived notions and just read as if you were reading for the first time. It's the best that's out there.

Once again Thom Jones has given his readers a great collection of fiction. Mr. Jones is one of the few authors who I make a point of reading anything and everything he publishes the moment it comes out. He hasn't let me down yet, and I'm betting he never will. If you haven't read his previous two collections, buy them and read them. He's a contemporary master of the genre.

First of all, i loved Thom Jones first two books. However, this one is not up to snuff. Maybe it's because his first two books were excellent and my standards for Jones are high. But Sonny Liston is awful. The stories have no closure, and you are often left wondering "is that it? did i miss something?" I'd love to get my money back on this one. Hopefully this is not indicative of what is left to come from Jones. He is much better than this book. Stick with Cold Snap and Pugilest at Rest. Please!

The heavyweight champion of literary fiction just keeps getting better and better, as his third short-story collection attests. Seasoned Jones fans will find it well worth the wait, while newcomers to his sinister, singular universe will find themselves gasping for breath. It's a universe inhabited by characters so unforgettably real that their voices will speak in your dreams. Death and disaster lurk on virtually every page, but so, too, do Jones' humor and heart. If life is a cosmic joke, Thom Jones' stories are its punch lines. After reading him, everyone else is too tame.

Thom Jones' third collection continues to raise the bar for honest, brave writing. With fearless gallows humor and pathos, Jones is able to confront life's absurdity and cruelty with an abandon on the page. You hear his characters like you do with few other writers. It's not a fair charge that this is a rehash of old territory because some of the stories were published in journals and magazines at the same time his first collection came out. And, a return trip to places like Aurora, Illinois is welcome! Who else is writing about that place--showing us that the loudest cri-de-coeur will come from the country's heartland? This is Wayne and Garth with some serious hangovers, their next door neighbors who've had too many visits from the repo man. If anything, with newer stories like the title story, "Mouses," "Tarantula," or "Midnight Clear," this collection reveals that Jones has developed more control over his narratives, finding more polished form for his always eloquent and hilarious voices. As always with Jones, your sense of your own humanity expands when you enter his world. Highly recommended!