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Fat City
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
14 posts | 11 read | 7 to read
Fat City is a vivid novel of allegiance and defeat, of the potent promise of the good life and the desperation and drink that waylay those whom it eludes. Stockton, California is the setting: the Lido Gym, the Hotel Coma, Main Street lunchrooms and dingy bars, days like long twilights in houses obscured by untrimmed shrubs and black walnut trees. When two men meet in the ring -- the retired boxer Billy Tully and the newcomer Ernie Munger - their brief bout sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Ernie into the company of men and luring Tully back into training. In a dispassionate and composed voice, Gardner narrates their swings of fortune, and the plodding optimism of their manager Ruben Luna, as he watches the most promising boys one by one succumb to some undefined weakness; still, "There was always someone who wanted to fight."
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The_Penniless_Author
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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Pickpick

A fantastic boxing novel that's not really about boxing at all. A funny and often sad portrait of poverty, dashed hopes, self-sabotage, and ennui born of the feeling that your best years have passed you by before they ever even really began. This is one of those tiny, near-perfect books, and if not for the abrupt, seemingly arbitrary ending this would be a five-star pick for me.

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The_Penniless_Author
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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#MotivationalMonday @Cupcake12

1. The usual balance of work, cleaning, school events, and trying to carve out some time to write.

2. That's a good question. I used to do it seemingly naturally, and now I can barely do it at all.

3. Stockton, CA in the late 1950s.

Cupcake12 Thanks for joining in. Have a great week x 10mo
33 likes1 comment
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The_Penniless_Author
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

He lived in the Hotel Coma - named perhaps for some founder of the town, some California explorer or pioneer, or for some long-deceased Italian immigrant who founded only the hotel itself.

ShyBookOwl Hotel Coma... sounds menacing 😅 10mo
27 likes1 comment
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The_Penniless_Author
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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BarbaraBB Favorite book 10mo
BarbaraBB I am not sure about February yet! 10mo
dabbe Will do; thanks for the tag! 🖤🩶🖤 10mo
RaeLovesToRead Thanks for the tag! 💕 10mo
30 likes4 comments
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TheSpineView
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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#Movie2BookRecs @klou
Prompt: Million Dollar Baby

Klou Perfect! 2y
TheSpineView @Klou 😊 2y
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TheSpineView
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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Klou Perfect choice! 3y
TheSpineView @Klou 🤩 3y
42 likes2 comments
review
onebigshoe
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
Pickpick

Easily one of my top 10 favorite books which Huston made into one of my top 10 movies. To refer to it as a book about boxing is to sell it short. It‘s about intersecting lives and how we occupy space with people at one time and then head out along our path. It‘s about brilliant dreams and our drab realities. It‘s a quick, concentrated, satisfying read.

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PurityofEssence
Fat City | Leonard Gardner
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"'Manny Chaves,' he whispered, 'had the clearest piss of any man I ever seen. He'd take a specimen and the piss in that bottle would be just as clean and pure as fresh drinking water'" (34). There's a reason we all love Gardner's dialogue. Pic: John Huston on the set of Fat City (1972).