Full name: Rust and Bone: Stories

Author: Craig Davidson Year: 2005 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Short Stories, Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780393329001 0393329003

In steel-tipped prose, Craig Davidson conjures a savage world populated by fighting dogs, prizefighters, sex addicts, and gamblers. In his title story, Davidson introduces an afflicted boxer whose hand never properly heals after a bone is broken. The fighter's career descends to bouts that have less to do with sport than with survival: no referee, no rules, not even gloves. In "A Mean Utility" we enter an even more desperate arena: dogfights where Rottweilers, pit bulls, and Dobermans fight each other to the death. Davidson's stories are small monuments to the telling detail. The hostility of his fictional universe is tempered by the humanity he invests in his characters and by his subtle and very moving observations of their motivations. He shares with Chuck Palahniuk the uncanny ability to compel our attention, time and time again, to the most difficult subject matter. Similar books: The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout A Piece of Mine by J. California Cooper The Matter Is Life by J. California Cooper Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J. California Cooper Some Soul To Keep by J. California Cooper I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer The Best of Ruskin Bond by Ruskin Bond The Complete Stories by Zora Neale Hurston