Thrown
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Thrown is Kerry Howley's knock-out debut and a unique journey into the world of Mixed Martial Arts fighting.
In this darkly funny work of literary reportage, narrated by an excitable, semi-fictionalized graduate student named Kit, a bookish young woman insinuates herself into the lives of two cage fighters - one a young prodigy, the other an aging journeyman. Kerry Howley follows these men for three years through the bloody world of mixed martial arts as they starve themselves, break bones, fail their families and form new ones in the quest to rise from remote Midwestern fairgrounds to packed Vegas arenas. With penetrating intelligence and wry humor, Howley exposes the profundities and absurdities of this American subculture.
'The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace' Time
'A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture' O, The Oprah Magazine
'The fight book of our generation has landed . . . a fantastic debut' The Week
'Compulsively readable' The New York Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This sui generis debut threatens to remap the entire genre of nonfiction. Howley, a philosophy student disillusioned by "academic apple-polishing," sets out on a quest to find the closest contemporary equivalent to Schopenhauer's concept of an ecstatic experience. She finds it, unexpectedly, in the world of mixed-martial-arts (MMA) fighting. Howley becomes a "species of fighterly accoutrement known as a spacetaker,' " ingratiating herself into the lives of two cage fighters: Sean Huffman, a smash-nosed, cauliflower-eared veteran with a legacy of losing but never getting knocked out, and Erik Koch, a young, lithe, apprentice-level beginner "destined for the big shows." Howley's brilliant prose is as dexterous and doughty as the fighters she trails, torquing into philosophy, parody, and sweat-soaked poetry. At times, the narrative is difficult to follow, while the contrast between her highbrow analysis and the aggressive MMA subculture can be disorienting. Her year-long immersion in the sport, however, proves as captivating as any blood-spattered spectacle.
