You've got something coming

Jonathan Starke

Book - 2020

"This is a novel about a down-and-outer and his small daughter and his attempt to provide more for her than she has been given either by him or her mother. Trucks, an aging boxer, breaks his daughter, Claudia, out of a children's home in Wisconsin one night during the dead of winter. She is a winsome, feisty little girl who tries to hold her father to account, and Trucks loves her unconditionally. He gives her used hearing aids to help with her deafness, and they begin hitchhiking to Nevada. Claudia's mother, an addict, has disappeared and is probably dead. Their first ride takes them to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where Trucks teaches Claudia about need borrowing, or shoplifting. They have only thirty dollars. They meet a numb...er of people on their journey, including June, a woman about Trucks' age who was abandoned by her husband, and Gerald, an older rancher in Montana who offers them a place to stay, an offer Trucks refuses. Trucks is unable to find work, except for boxing--he is trapped in an activity for which he is no longer suited. The damage to his body does not heal, but worsens, fight after fight. And it hurts Claudia to see her father hurt. Depressed and confused, his mind no longer reliable, Trucks steals a car and he and Claudia drive east, delusional and drifting in and out of consciousness, to try to reconnect with June."--Provided by publisher.

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FICTION/Starke, Jonathan
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Subjects
Genres
Domestic fiction
Psychological fiction
Social problem fiction
Published
Anacortes, Washington : Black Heron Press [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Jonathan Starke (author)
Physical Description
292 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781936364329
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Starke's knockout punch of a debut follows the adventures of an aging, down-on-his-luck boxer and his deaf, motherless daughter. While suffering the aftereffects of his latest bout, Trucks breaks Claudia out of a children's home in Wisconsin and heads west with her in search of a better life for both of them, vowing to his daughter that he'll stay out of the ring. Father and daughter hitch their way across Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana, encountering helpful people along the way, among them June, a kindly woman whose husband has just left her because she is barren, and Gerald, a widowed Montana farmer who gives them a temporary home. But as Trucks tries to bond with his daughter and make the best life for her he can, fate and his inner demons conspire against them, and, in the end, a desperate, short-sighted Trucks returns to the ring for a low-paying match, risking his health for one last attempt to support Claudia. Trucks's relationship with his daughter is the emotionally fraught core of this tough and tender novel. Taking punishment both in and out of the ring, Trucks will remind readers of Hemingway's punch-drunk "The Battler," as well as the broken dreamers of F.X. Toole's Rope Burns and Leonard Gardner's Fat City. Starke's bruising, brooding book is a real heartbreaker. (Apr.)

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