Full name: Pound for Pound: A Novel

Author: F. X. Toole Year: 2006 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780060881344 0060881348

Pound for Pound is a big novel in the truest sense of the word, a story of family, honor, perseverance, and forgiveness. Set in towns where violence is the norm and success stories take on an almost mythic importance, it tells of grandfathers and grandsons--older men for whom life has not been easy and the young men who look to them for guidance --and reveals the transformative power of that relationship. Dan Cooley, an aging but legendary Los Angeles trainer, takes on a troubled young fighter named Chicky Garza, hungry to make a name for himself in the San Antonio boxing circuit, which is rife with crime and corruption. The bond between them grows more powerful than the obstacles they face, ultimately reviving in each man the courage it takes to triumph both in and out of the ring. This masterful, posthumous novel follows Toole's remarkable fiction debut, Rope Burns (recently published in paperback as Million Dollar Baby), which earned comparisons to Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Frank McCourt, and which became an Academy Award-winning film four years after publication. As James Ellroy says in the foreword, "F. X. Toole did not live to visit the set or hug the stars at the premiere. The rumor was true. He had a bum ticker." It is a tragedy that the world will not hear more from F. X. Toole, but Pound for Pound is a novel that any writer would be proud to leave behind, marking his place in the world of letters. Similar books: Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde Empire Falls by Richard Russo Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson 2666 by Roberto Bolano Buying the Farm by Kimberly Conn Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver Harbor of the Heart by Katherine Spencer We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates Everyman by Philip Roth The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton South of Broad by Pat Conroy Old School by Tobias Wolff The Big Free by Martha B. Boone The Risk Pool by Richard Russo Drop City by T. Coraghessan Boyle Fathers and Forefathers by Slobodan Selenic The Children Act by Ian McEwan