Product Description

An acclaimed, award-winning collection of stories moves from the combat zones of Vietnam, and their personal consequences, to a suburban home afflicted by cancer, to hallucinations in Bombay, and to other combat zones. Reprint. QPB Alt. NYT.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71465 in Books
• Published on: 1994-05-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.com Review
Thom Jones's first collection of stories is a revelation. In prose that sounds like nobody else, Jones channels a variety of distinctively different voices, from the lustful book editor of "Unchain My Heart" to the epileptic, amnesiac adman of the Dostoevskian fable "A White Horse." There's not a miss among these tales, but two in particular stand out: the title story, about a boxer and Vietnam vet who has plumbed the vicious depths of his own soul, and the almost unbearably intense chronicle of a woman fighting a losing battle with cancer, "I Want to Live!" "The world is replete with badness," says the aging fighter of "A Pugilist at Rest"; yet, as the narrator of "I Want to Live!" discovers, there is nothing stronger than the human will to go on, to persist--even in the face of the hell that exists right here on earth. It's not all gloom, doom, and napalm, however. There's also the surreal, Gogol-esque humor of "The Black Lights," in which the pysch-ward protagonist insists his only problem is epilepsy, yet hallucinates a giant, shuddering rabbit caught under his bed at night ("It's that rabbit on the Br'er Rabbit molasses jar. That rabbit with buckles on his shoes! Bow tie. Yaller teeth! Yaller! Yaller!") Then, too, Jones creates images of startling, surreal clarity amid the horror, like the dying lieutenant who remains on one knee even after being shot, "his remaining arm extended out to the enemy, palm upward in the soulful, heartrending gesture of Al Jolson doing a rendition of 'Mammy.'" Take a decidedly grim world-view, add a dose of existential slapstick, some Schopenhauer, an encyclopedic knowledge of pharmaceuticals, and a soundtrack by the Doors, and you have what may be the darkest, funniest, most urgent fictional debut in years. --Mary Park

From Publishers Weekly
Jones's gritty and poetic debut short-story collection was selected by PW as one of the best books of 1993.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Jones, a former marine and amateur boxer, recently published short stories in The New Yorker and Harper's. The themes dominating his first collection are violence, adultery, alcoholism, epilepsy, and madness. The sheer visceral intensity of Jones's prose is amplified by the sensitivity with which his characters are drawn: a soldier in Vietnam recognizes his capacity for violence in an ancient Roman statue; an abusive womanizer reacts with instinctive viciousness when he falls in love; a janitor attempts to lure a slow student from a potentially disastrous relationship; a dying woman finds solace in the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Jones's gritty yet refined prose stands in sharp contrast to the more apologetic work of National Book Award winner Tim O'Brien ( Going After Cacciato , LJ 12/15/77; The Things They Carried , LJ 2/15/90), with whom critical comparison is inevitable. This outstanding collection is sure to be in demand in public libraries.
- Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

SHORT STORIES YOU REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME
I last read this book 11 years ago when it came out in its first edition, and I still remember each story with such clarity it's like I just finished reading it this morning. That's nothing to do with my (atrocious) memory, but with the power and clarity of Jones' writing.
I liken Thom Jones to a literary Tom Waits.

Great Vietnam writing but not great fiction
I once met Thom Jones and had the opportunity to hear him read his then just published I Want to Live! from Harper's. Prior to our meeting and his reading, I had been given copies of his three New Yorker stories: The Pugilist at Rest, Break on Through and The Black Lights.

He was sincere, he was quiet -very low-key- and medicated to the gills, eyes glazed-over. He answered questions: Yes, he'd really boxed, and had epilepsy; Vietnam was, well, he didn't actually go; yes, he had fought drinking, and so on. He spoke like he wrote, I thought: An overdue suicide.

Thom Jones's stories struck me as brimming with so much unrelieved tension, forced emotion, and flailing frustration rather than "rage-filled" and "raw," that I felt cheated, and sometimes used. I thought he was an accomplished stylist with quite an eye for detail if not always dialogue, but offered few insights and little compassion for his characters; I found it hard to care much about them, though felt sorry for the author. Perhaps he was only doing to them what he thought life had done to him?

The first three stories in this collection impress me as good "Vietnam fiction" but not of the depth or caliber of Tim O'Brien, let alone WWII chroniclers like James Jones or Norman Mailer or Willi Heinrich.

Jones's worldview is decidedly bleak; for me, reading his prose is somewhat like a marathon of Richard Yates and Gina Berriault, but not as good.

When he finished reading I Want to Live!, I hate to say the piece left me thinking "so what?" I found the story superficial, emotionally false and manipulative. I Want to Live! made me thoughtful, a little sad -and disappointed in its writer.

I couldn't bring myself to purchase this book when it was first released (I got it for $3.00 at a used book store some years later); it seemed to me this book was more hyped than it deserved, though when I told people that their reactions made me feel stupid, like a literary Neanderthal. Maybe I am.

I give Jones three stars for the first three stories: They are very good Vietnam pieces, but the rest of his fiction leaves me cold. I wish he could find something redeeming for his readers and himself, something that would shine or creep through the unremitting darkness and bad luck. Even Richard Yates sometimes gave us that.

Raw Rage
These are not stories to lull you to sleep at night. Reading Thom Jones is like running the marathon, or going several rounds in the ring or, for us desk jockeys, completing that hotly contested deal. You know you've been in a fight even if it is only a verbal one. Thom Jones' prose is raw and disturbing. Whether telling stories of Vietnam or boxing or struggles with serious illness, this collection bluntly but articulately tells of a dark and hostile world and the rage to live that constantly challenges it. Jones reexamines traditional machismo (even as demonstrated by female characters) and shows both the will to live and the naivete demonstrated therein. While these stories have a dark and cynical tone, they scream so loudly about the need to live that they are the perfect antidote to that feeling of cultural suffocation. Read them. They will leave their mark.