Fat City, Leonard Gardner
Fat City, Leonard Gardner
List: $16.99 | Sale: $11.89
Club: $8.49

Fat City

Author: Leonard Gardner

Narrator: R. C. Bray

Unabridged: 4 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/31/2016

Categories: Fiction, Sports


Synopsis

Fat City is a vivid novel of defiance and struggle, of the potent promise of the good life and the desperation and drink that waylay those whom it eludes. Stockton, California, is the novel's setting: the Lido Gym, the Hotel Coma, Main Street's lunchrooms and dark bars offer a temporary respite to the men and women whose backbreaking work in the fields barely allows them to make a living.

When two men meet in the gym—the ex-boxer Billy Tully and the novice Ernie Munger—their brief sparring session sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Munger into the "company of men" and luring Tully back into training. Fat City tells of their anxieties and hopes, their loves and losses, and the stubborn determination of their manager, Ruben Luna, who knows that even the most promising kid is likely to fall prey to some weakness. Then again, "There was always someone who wanted to fight."

About Leonard Gardner

Leonard Gardner was born in Stockton, California. His short stories and articles have appeared in the Paris Review, Esquire, Southwest Review, and Brick, among other magazines. His screen adaptation of Fat City was made into a film by John Huston in 1972; he subsequently worked as a writer for independent film and television. For his work on the series NYPD Blue he twice received a Humanitas Prize as well as a Peabody Award. In 2008 he was the recipient of the A. J. Liebling Award, given by the Boxing Writers Association of America. A former Guggenheim fellow, he lives in Northern California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rae on October 28, 2016

Fat City won the National Book Award in 1970. Reading it I felt the masculine despair of Carver, Bukowski even, a gritty look at men who are not making it. One character is a past-his-prime boxer who works day labor in the fields of Central California but returns to the gym to try to regain somethin......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on February 25, 2020

One solid American Tale. More about the men's personal life (wives, remedial jobs, prejudice) than the sport of boxing. (Why o why am I so attracted to these little books about athletes? I read "The Natural" a while ago & right now the Olympics ARE where its all about. But perhaps I'm kinda trying t......more

Goodreads review by Brian on September 20, 2015

California is a story of two states. Norcal and Socal, for all of their rivalries and proclamations of differences are really two sides of a coin. It’s moving inland - where the politics shift right, home values decrease and employment outside of the agriculture sector becomes more scarce – this is......more

Goodreads review by Jordan on February 08, 2023

I shied away from this for years because of my complete lack of interest in boxing, but in the end I was pulled in by Gardner's mastery at capturing the insanity of that sport and the inherent sadness of most everything else.......more

Goodreads review by Jeff on December 07, 2020

Denis Johnson rosetta stone, shifting mosaic of stunted lives, and tone poem about boxing, among other things.......more