Bang the Drum Slowly Book

Originally posted at The Velvet:

In Craig Davidson's "debut" novel (having previously published some genre fiction under a pseudonym), two pugilists from opposite sides of the tracks (in this case, substitute rails for the Falls of Niagara) each fight for the wrong reasons. Rob Tully, who came out of the womb swinging in a working-class family of boxers, has no passion for the sport, though his natural skill may punch his ticket to a better life. In the other corner is Paul Harris, a privileged heir who got sand kicked in his face one too many times and renounced the cushy family biz to forge his scrawny ass into steel through a cocktail of performance enhancers and general misanthropy.

Plot-wise, well . . . that's pretty much it. Of course things happen on the road to the middle, but the tale is the (un?)making of these men, and the final act inevitable. It's sort of the literary equivalent of one of those HBO fight-pimping documentaries where they paint the opponents as Yin and Yang while crosscutting their parallel narrative paths to the ring. Except this world is far more brutal. Sure, they train gloved in stank gyms, but all the real blows come bare-knuckled in makeshift rural arenas and on city streets. There's even a brief Fight Club homage, likely meant to acknowledge and dispel the inevitable comparisons.

Minor characters reflect the fighters' worlds throughout, whether it's the gym bums waxing barbershop nostalgic at ringside, dogs as punchy as their owners, or the lady companions and relatives they keep at a distance who provide convenient (if sometimes clichéd) exposition.

The plot may be straightforward and character development a bit thin, but the prose is where Davidson shines like a detached retina under a penlight. He puts the viscera in visceral. I've winced at words before, but can't recall having ever actually recoiled from a page until now.
A flashpot went off inside Paul's braincase, a tiny superheated sun that scorched the walls of bone; the light froze in thin sharp icicles that dangled, luminous, from the roof of his skull.
A clubbing blow sent him to the ground again. He backed away on his palms and heels, skittering like a sand crab. The world acquired a pinkish tinge, the buildings and streets and cars spun from cotton candy.
Davidson's vocabulary is impressive without giving the reader a complex about it. He stops short of sending you for your dictionary because the meanings remain clear through well-constructed sentences. And his similes are among the best I've read, connecting some quite disparate subjects. Adjective abuse runs rampant, however, and colorful as they may be, few nouns are spared:
The spiraling coils of a hydroelectric plant reared in solitary abandonment against the night sky. Farther on, a rutted dirt path rounded into a sprawling farmstead.
In a very clever-yet-subtle move, the prologue establishes first-person present tense, then the rest flashes back to past tense in the third person. This serves at least two purposes: maintaining suspense over which fighter becomes the man described in the prologue, while underscoring that transformation by detaching from his former self through point-of-view. A common theme has nearly all the fighters in the book feeling conflicted about hurting their opponents, whether out of guilt, or some professional code of ethics. And they all pay for this perceived weakness with pounded flesh.

This book is perhaps known less for the words inside than the abuse the author endured to research and later promote it. In this Esquire article, Davidson details the savage toll his steroid experiments took upon his body and mind. He also staged two public boxing matches against other writers, taking a beating in both, which in a way sets a more fitting tone for the reading experience.

Davidson's short-story collection Rust and Bone is one of my all-time favorite reads, and I believe a better introduction to his writing talents and potential.