Grimmish

Author(s): Michael Winkler

Novel | Australia

Pain was Joe Grim's self-expression, his livelihood and reason for being. In 1908-09 the Italian-American boxer toured Australia, losing fights but amazing crowds with his showmanship and extraordinary physical resilience. On the east coast Grim played a supporting role in the Jack Johnson-Tommy Burns Fight of the Century; on the west coast he was committed to an insane asylum. In between he played with the concept and reality of pain in a shocking manner not witnessed before or since. Award-winning writer Michael Winkler braids the story of Grim in Australia and meditations on pain with thoughts on masculinity and vulnerability, plus questionable jokes, into a highly creative haymaker. 

Review:
'The strangest book you are likely to read this year.' — JM Coetzee


'Grimmish meets a need I didn't even know I had. I lurched between bursts of wild laughter, shudders of horror, and gasps of awe at Winkler's verbal command: the freshness and muscle of his verbs, the unstoppable flow of his images, the bizarre wit of the language of pugilism-and all the while, a moving subterranean glint of strange masculine tenderness.' — Helen Garner


Author Biography: Michael Winkler is a writer from Melbourne, Australia, living on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. He is the author, co-author and editor of numerous books, and won the Calibre Essay Prize for 'The Great Red Whale'. His journalism, shortfiction, reviews and essays have been widely published and anthologised.


 


Product Information

Shortlisted Miles Franklin 2022

General Fields

  • : 9781922571472
  • : Puncher and Wattmann
  • : Puncher and Wattmann
  • : 01 May 2022
  • : {"length"=>["21"], "width"=>["14.8"], "units"=>["Centimeters"]}
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Michael Winkler
  • : Paperback
  • : 823.92
  • : 208
  • : F