Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Thom Jones
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Short fiction
- Time of Work: 1960-1995
- Setting: Vietnam, Hawaii, Illinois, and Michigan
- Principal Characters: Matthew, John Harold Hammermeister, Felix, Kid Dynamite, Frankie Dell, Anson, William, Molly Bloom
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, 1970’s, North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Adolescence, Midwest, 1980’s, Mental illness, Drugs, Michigan, Boxing, 1990’s, High schools or high school students, Vietnam or Vietnamese people
- Locales: Michigan, Illinois, Vietnam, Hawaii
After three well-received collections of stories, Thom Jones’s own story is well known: a hitch in the Marines in the 1960’s, a stint at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in the 1970’s, failure to write and sell stories in the then- popular Raymond Carver mode, and ten years as a high school janitor. Then, one day he saw a successful old friend on television and, in envy and despair, sat down to write “The Pugilist at Rest” in his own manic voice; the story was picked out of the slush pile at The New Yorker and won an O. Henry Award in 1993. Jones once sold three stories in...
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