Fat City

By: Leonard Gardner

Narrated by: R.C. Bray

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."

©1969 Leonard Gardner. Introduction copyright 1996 by Denis Johnson (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Leonard Gardner's pitch-perfect account of boxing, blue-collar bewilderment and the battle of the sexes, is cause for celebration, and reflection." ( San Francisco Chronicle)

Good story, depressing

Great narration. The prose is very descriptive and the dialouge feels very real. Damn if this story isn't depressing though.

Good book for men

A good book for men about what it means to be masculine or manly when you’re broke. The reader is an artist, excellent voice work.

Perfect book

A true performance of the text, its characters and their rapid fire vernaculars, their accents, the rhythm of the distended by drink night that keeps building around our nowhere men. Here’s a perfect book.

I don't get it?

I just do not get why this book seems so highly regarded. It is alright and I believe R. C. Bray is the best narrator bar none but nothing more than average here.