....is that of boxing and Liebling's articles on boxiana, collected from their New Yorker appearance, cover June, 1951, to September, 1955, and present a personal and polished accounting of the square ring of those years. The first section deals with the Louis-Savold fight, Cerdan-Marciano, -Ray Robinson-Turpin, Robinson-Maxim, Marciano-Walcott and the return match, Ezzard Charles-Marciano and the return; then come pieces on other boys, Araujo, Jackson, Saddler, and assorted club fights and fighters including a trip to Ireland and back for the Ma Moore meeting. For this laying on of hands there are many sidelights — the managers, trainers, the other members of the "fancy"; there are the people in the crowds, the gallery that follows the events at the training quarters, the feeling of the fans in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and the excitement of the big night. And there is much of boxing history, lore and legend worked in so that the whole is a many-patterned picture of the ring and its performers. Excellent reading and not only for the buffs.
Pub Date: June 15, 1956
ISBN: 0374272271
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1956
Debut novel, originally self-published, by a Texas Monthly contributor who mostly avoids the hokey near-religious overtones often attached to his sport—golf—overtones similar to those often attached by baseball writers to theirs. Pipkin occasionally slips up, but mostly his linkster's coming-of-age yarn is snatched from the abyss of the excessively reverent by some colorful local characters, a lost-father riff, and the author's dead-on ear for Lone Star State dialogue. Set in 1965 and filtered through the perspective of 13-year-old caddie Billy Hempel, the story is mainly about a nine-hole grudge match between Roscoe Fowler and William March. The two had played 27 years earlier, on a desolate Texas plain, for ownership of their oil company. Fowler won by sinking a suspicious hole-in-one in utter darkness, and March has never gotten over the insult to either his game or his ego. The foursome now is fleshed out by Fowler's odious ringer, Carl ``Beast'' Larsen, a tremendous player, and March's second, a brilliant but troubled young Hogan-wielder named Sandy Bates. Age and power thus collide with nobility and beauty: Fowler is old and mean; March is a gentleman cowboy. Billy is carrying for Beast, however—at March's behest, a strategy designed to keep the bad guys honest. Maybe. As the match progresses, the wager is changed and new wagers are made; harsh words are lobbed, and skillful—at time dazzling—shots are executed on both sides, equipment is destroyed, and Billy's mother drops in to unload a doozy of a revelation. Then a real reckoning looms for Sandy and Billy both, and not all may be as it seems. A paean to the Scottish game of sticks and flags with authentic lingo, a solid structure, and plenty of old-fashioned masculine wallowing in the transcendent metaphor of silly games.
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-31647-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
A medley of well-crafted essays and short stories highlights one man's lifelong love affair with bird hunting. Jones, a novelist and former Sports Illustrated staffer, writes for hunting magazines like Sports Afield and Gray's Sporting Journal. No surprise, then, that much of his nonfiction reads less like essays than magazine articles. But even the most topical, how- to piece, like ``America's Bird,'' mixes history, ornithology, and autobiography with Jones's turkey hunting dos and don'ts, adding a savory-sounding recipe for roast wild gobbler to boot. ``D-Day In Maryland'' surpasses simple instruction to capture the mythic atmosphere and tradition of wingshooting at a Chesapeake Bay hunting club. So skillfully does it pinpoint the delicious anticipation of opening day, when ``like a kid on the cusp of summer vacation, you can look ahead to a whole long string of seemingly endless weeks,'' that it might serve as an exemplar for the sporting essay, which exists primarily to help hunters through the long dark night of the soul known as off-season. The two short stories, ``Are You Lonesome Tonight?'' and ``In the Drowned Lands,'' though mere tales, crackle with crisp action and keen description, signifying authority of experience. Jones touches all the bases the sporting genre demands—his writing is chock-full of larger-than-life characters, both human and canine; he pays due to the aesthetics of the hunt: the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction mingled with regret when a bird is brought to hand. Yet a preoccupation with the kill risks marring the book with a stunted, adolescent feel by creating the misconception that Jones hasn't outgrown the stage of hunting that measures success by body count, rather than quality of time spent afield. A trifle bloodthirsty, but lively and genuine. (line art)
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1996
ISBN: 1-55821-496-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
