Pound for Pound » (Bargain)

F. X. Toole was born in 1930. Having worked as a bullfighter, professional boxing "cut man," taxi driver, and saloon keeper, Toole published his first book of fiction at age seventy. He died in 2002, before seeing his short story "Million Dollar Baby" become an Academy Award-winning film.

Following his remarkable fiction debut, Rope Burns, author F. X. Toole's Pound for Pound is a big, brawny novel of honor, perseverance, family, and forgiveness, set in towns where violence is the norm and success stories take on an almost mythic importance. It is the story of Dan Cooley, an aging, legendary Los Angeles trainer, who takes on Chicky Garza, a troubled young fighter hungry for glory in the notoriously corrupt San Antonio boxing circuit. Written in the masterful style that has earned the author glowing comparisons to Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Frank McCourt, this unforgettable posthumous novel celebrates a unique and powerful bond, and the courage that overcomes insurmountable obstacles in and out of the ring.

Publishers Weekly

Toole, who died before seeing the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of his short story "Million Dollar Baby," weighs in posthumously with this bruising smoker of a novel. (The novel was "shaped," notes James Ellroy in the introduction, from a 900-page manuscript by Toole's agent and a freelance editor.) Dan Cooley, a onetime contender who has outlived his wife and children and whose life revolves around his grandson, Tim Pat, goes off the rails after Tim Pat is killed in a traffic accident. As Cooley vacillates between booze-fueled suicidal thoughts and fantasies of homicidal vengeance, Hispanic teenager Eduardo "Chicky" Garza y Duffy begins his troubled ascent in the amateur boxing world. That these two men, separated by thousands of miles, ethnicity and generations, will become the vehicle for one another's redemption is inevitable, but Toole's unsentimental prose and knack for creating tragic characters (whose sufferings, in turn, lead to plausible triumphs) overcome the ready-made plot. Cooley's thesis, that prize fighting, for all its apparent brutality, is a sport that rewards wisdom, skill and (at times) fair play informs Toole's writing; the result is a stunning cap to a short but brilliant writing career. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.