{"product_id":"the-knockout-artist-isbn-9780143137931","title":"The Knockout Artist","description":"\u003cb\u003eCrews’s novel about a boxer with the gift of knocking \u003ci\u003ehimself\u003c\/i\u003e unconscious, with a new foreword by \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author S. A. Cosby \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A Penguin Classic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA favorite of longtime Harry Crews fans, \u003ci\u003eThe Knockout Artist\u003c\/i\u003e (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking \u003ci\u003ehimself\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003ci\u003e“The Knockout Artist\u003c\/i\u003e is unpredictable, unkempt, utterly hostile to interpretation, summary, or genre. It achieves, in form and in style, a sense of blazing, anarchic, profligate freedom.” \u003cb\u003e—Charlie Lee, \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The Knockout Artist\u003c\/i\u003e (1988) is a high point of the fruitful second chapter of Crews’s career... \u003ci\u003eThe Knockout Artist\u003c\/i\u003e, for all of its grimness and horror, shows that he was still the sensitive boy from \u003ci\u003eA Childhood\u003c\/i\u003e, tenderly fascinated by the disfigurements that shape our fortunes.” \u003cb\u003e—Sam Sacks, \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“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 \u003ci\u003eJane Eyre\u003c\/i\u003e: ‘I would always rather be happy than dignified.’” \u003cb\u003e—Dwight Garner, \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eHarry Crews\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1935 at the end of a dirt road in Alma, Bacon County, Georgia, a rural community near the Okefenokee Swamp. A protégé of Southern novelist Andrew Lytle, Crews published his first short story in the \u003ci\u003eSewanee Review \u003c\/i\u003ein 1962. He published his first novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Gospel Singer\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1968. Its publication earned Crews a new teaching job at the University of Florida and paved the way for the publication of seven more novels over the next eight years, including \u003ci\u003eNaked in Garden Hills \u003c\/i\u003e(1969); \u003ci\u003eCar \u003c\/i\u003e(1972); \u003ci\u003eThe Hawk Is Dying \u003c\/i\u003e(1973), which was adapted into a film released in 2006; \u003ci\u003eThe Gypsy’s Curse \u003c\/i\u003e(1974); and the widely acclaimed \u003ci\u003eA Feast of Snakes \u003c\/i\u003e(1976). Crews’s reputation as a bold and daring new voice in Southern writing grew during this time. In the 1970s, he wrote for popular magazines, including a monthly column for \u003ci\u003eEsquire \u003c\/i\u003eand essays for \u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e, and screenplays. In 1978, Crews’s memoir of his youth, \u003ci\u003eA Childhood: The Biography of a Place\u003c\/i\u003e, was published to enduring acclaim. Two compilations of his nonfiction works, \u003ci\u003eBlood and Grits \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eFlorida Frenzy\u003c\/i\u003e, were issued in 1979 and 1982, respectively. A decade of drug and alcohol abuse and creative lapses ended in 1987 with the publication of his ninth novel, \u003ci\u003eAll We Need of Hell\u003c\/i\u003e. Crews retired from the classroom after teaching for thirty years at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Crews, who died in 2012 at age seventy-six, was a prominent writer in the literary genre known as Dirty South or Grit Lit.Crews remade Southern gothic in his own rough-hewn image in eighteen memorable novels, including \u003ci\u003eKarate Is a Thing of the Spirit \u003c\/i\u003e(1971), \u003ci\u003eThe Knockout Artist \u003c\/i\u003e(1988), and \u003ci\u003eBody \u003c\/i\u003e(1990), dozens of riveting nonfiction pieces, and one of the finest memoirs in American literature. In 2002, the University of Georgia Libraries inducted Harry Crews into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. \u003cb\u003eS.A. Cosby \u003c\/b\u003e(foreword) is the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eRazorblade Tears \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBlacktop Wasteland\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book Prize, was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book, and was named a best book of the year by \u003ci\u003eNPR, The Guardian, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Library Journal, \u003c\/i\u003eamong others. His latest novel is \u003ci\u003eAll The Sinners Bleed\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Penguin Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304816955621,"sku":"NP9780143137931","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143137931.jpg?v=1767740080","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-knockout-artist-isbn-9780143137931","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}