THE ACRES AND ACRES OF FERTILE SOIL - THE TWO-HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD ANTEBELLUM HOUSE - ALL GONE.And so is the woman who gave it to him. The foster mother who saved Jack Boucher from a childhood of abandonment now rests in a hospice. Her mind eroded by dementia, the family legacy she entrusted to Jack is now owned by banks and strangers. And Jack's mind is failing too, as concussion after concussion forces him to carry around a notebook of names that separate friend from foe. In a single twisted night Jack is derailed. Losing the money that will clear his debt with the queen of Delta vice, and forcing Jack into the fighting pit one last time. The stakes? Nothing less than life or death. Praise for Michael Farris Smith'Michael Farris Smith is continuing the southern gothic tradition of William Gay and Flannery O'Connor. Drenched in sorrow and written with complex language, The Fighter moves toward a conclusion both surprising and inevitable' - Chris Offutt on The Fighter'Equal parts brutal and beautiful and harrowing, it's left me totally bereft' - Chris Whitaker on The Fighter'Like living language, literary modes have both a formal and a demotic form. What we call "noir" is high tragedy brought down to the forgotten and disavowed… With The Fighter, cleaving to tradition, Michael Farris Smith brings that tradition brilliantly into the present' - James Sallis on The Fighter'Smith is emerging as one of the great chroniclers of America's dispossessed' - Mail on Sunday on Blackwood'If you're a fan of Southern or Rural Noir – James Lee Burke, Daniel Woodrell, Donald Ray Pollock, the literary children of Flannery O'Connor – you'll feel uncomfortably at home' - Times on Blackwood'Vividly imagined and suffused with pulsing narrative energy and an assured, atmospheric sense of period setting and speech' - Irish Times on NICK
