The Knockout Artist

By: Harry Crews, S. A. Cosby - introduction

Narrated by: Matt Godfrey

Crews’s novel about a boxer with the gift of knocking himself unconscious, with a new foreword by New York Times-bestselling author S. A. Cosby

A Penguin Classic

A favorite of longtime Harry Crews fans, The Knockout Artist (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking himself unconscious. As he begins to exploit his talents, the notorious Knockout Artist journeys a hero’s descent into the New Orleans underworld and meets characters who have long since checked their morals at the door.  The unforgettable climax shows Crews at his virtuoso best, when Eugene confronts his truth, and sets out to claim his freedom and win his own self-respect.

Critic reviews

“The Knockout Artist is unpredictable, unkempt, utterly hostile to interpretation, summary, or genre. It achieves, in form and in style, a sense of blazing, anarchic, profligate freedom.” —Charlie Lee, Harper's

“The Knockout Artist (1988) is a high point of the fruitful second chapter of Crews’s career... The Knockout Artist, for all of its grimness and horror, shows that he was still the sensitive boy from A Childhood, tenderly fascinated by the disfigurements that shape our fortunes.” —Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“This was a movement for which I’m tempted to use a shorthand drawn from three of its best writers: Harry, Barry and Larry. I am talking about Harry Crews (1935-2012), Barry Hannah (1942-2010) and Larry Brown (1951-2004). They were at the vanguard of a genre sometimes referred to as Grit Lit, or Rough South.(…) They provided me, in a way more highbrow writers might not have, with core literary values. Among them: Dry is better than wet. Funny beats somber. Liberal (in the small “l” sense) is better than conservative. Writing about ordinary lives is, nine times out of 10, more valuable and more interesting than reading about cosseted or artistic ones.(…) Like the filmmaker Mike Leigh, Harry, Barry and Larry refused to condescend to working-class people. (…) They were in absolute sync with the world’s misfits, dissidents and jokers. All three had a mistrust of authority. Few writers have better lived up to Charlotte Brontë’s epic declaration in Jane Eyre: ‘I would always rather be happy than dignified.’” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Weirdness

A knockout artist for all the wrong reasons. Then he meets Charity and things get more wrong. A tame novel by Harry Crews standards.

Great Everything

Story, characters, moments, performance. Superb. Harry Crews’ magnum opus. Any fan of lit-grit or literary fiction Needs to read this book

Unhinged

Such a guy. What a writer. The narrator is my favorite. Genuinely unique and very southern whacky

Harry Crews is brilliant

Beautiful, heartfelt, brutally honest, painful, and redemptive. This is one of Crew’s best novels. And the performance is excellent as well.

Twisted book

This book was a waste of a read… the storyline actually gave me a headache worse than the main protagonist in the novel.