The Longshot, Katie Kitamura
The Longshot, Katie Kitamura
List: $11.95 | Sale: $8.36
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The Longshot
A Novel

Author: Katie Kitamura

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Unabridged: 4 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook (DRM Protected)

Published: 08/11/2009

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

Four years after Rivera knocked Cal from dominance in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), Cal’s coach, Riley, has set up a rematch. It will be good for Cal, and he’s ready for it—he’s been training harder than ever, trying to shake the lethargy that’s plagued him ever since he lost. Knowing he’s going to face Rivera again, he gets his focus and energy back, but Rivera has never lost a fight, and in the final days before the match, both Cal and Riley secretly begin have doubts, though neither wants to let the other down. In taut, rhythmic language, Katie Kitamura renders the urgency, discipline, and mutual affection of athlete and coach with depth and subtlety. As the excruciating tension builds around the big fight, the listener will be captivated through the final electrifying scene.

About Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura is an award-winning author of several novels, including A Separation, which was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori. It was named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications and translated into sixteen languages. Her two previous novels, Gone to the Forest and The Longshot, were both finalists for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and Santa Maddalena Foundation, she has written for publications including the New York Times, London Guardian, Granta, Bomb Magazine, Triple Canopy, and Frieze. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.

About Mark Bramhall

Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their “Best Voices of the Year.” He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Greg on August 23, 2012

If you are going to read one book about MMA I'd probably recommend this one to you. I'm assuming you don't care about MMA, and probably think it's stupid/barbaric/a blood sport/gay/not a real sport like boxing/just another professional wrestling organization. Why this one? Because it's not really a......more

Goodreads review by Lori on November 07, 2016

review to come The sparse and precise prose, and the perfectly paired narrator, pulled me through.......more

Goodreads review by Nigel on February 07, 2011

Towards the end of last year, a story of mine was published in a volume of ‘The Reader’. The other piece of fiction in that issue was by Vanessa Hemingway, granddaughter of the great man himself. On the back of ‘The Longshot’ Tom McCarthy says ‘Hemingway’s returned to life – and this time, he’s a woma......more

Quotes

“Deft, subtle, and hard-hitting all at once…A disquisition on hope, hurt and vulnerability that’s heartbreakingly acute.” Ekow Eshun, author of Black Gold of the Sun

“She knows her way around the ring and the human heart.” Elizabeth Benedict, author of Almost and The Practice of Deceit 

“In taut, pared-down prose, Kitamura takes the reader right into the ring. Kitamura’s understanding of the psychological dimension of this brutally physical sport is uncanny and never less than convincing.” Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist

“[Kitamura] writes with the kind of controlled, compressed passion that produces literary gems.” Jon Fasman, author of The Geographer’s Library

“This is a terrific debut: charged, intimate, raw. Here is an author who not only understands the alloying of muscle and mentality in sport, the elation and heartbreak of competition, and of life, but can also write about it all with compassion and beautiful austerity.” Sarah Hall, author of The Electric Michelangelo

“Hemingway’s returned to life—and this time, he’s a woman.” Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder

“With refreshingly unadorned prose, Kitamura reduces to an intensely crystalline moment the tension surrounding a fighter and his coach as they prepare for a match.” Yannick Murphy, author of Signed, Mata Hari

“Spare and beautifully written…Kitamura, a journalist who for years has followed MMA matches, brings a physicality to her story with descriptions of the action so vivid the reader feels the pain of every punch and kick.” Publishers Weekly

“Mark Bramhall’s urgent delivery of the exciting novel turns it into a production listeners won't be able to turn off…Bramhall’s punchy delivery is the perfect vehicle for the story of a man who sets out to conquer his own fear.” AudioFile

“Brutally honest, The Longshot tells of a man's passion and dreams, and what's left when those hopes collide with reality. Kitamura's debut is a gripping novel of courage. A Barnes and Noble Discover Author selection.” BarnesandNoble.com review

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