Overview

Hilarious, insightful, compelling- a knock-out debut and a unique journey into the world of mixed martial arts fighting In this darkly funny work of literary reportage, narrated by an excitable, semi-fictionalized graduate student named Kit, a bookish young woman insinuates herself into the lives of two cage fighters - one a young prodigy, the other an ageing journeyman. Kerry Howley follows these men for three years through the bloody world of mixed martial arts as they starve themselves, break bones, fail their families and form new ones in the quest to rise from remote Midwestern fairgrounds to packed Vegas arenas. With penetrating intelligence and wry humor, Howley exposes the profundities and absurdities of this American subculture.

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9780241207291

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Reviews

Publisher's description. A genre-bending work of literary reportage. The profound and the absurd come face to face in this extraordinary auto-fiction expose, as a bookish young woman stumbles across the bizarre underworld of professional cage fighting and finds herself unexpectedly hooked. Befriending fighters and chasing fights, she becomes ever more entangled in the macabre, blackly comic and ultimately heart-breaking drama of the octagon. Penguin Compulsively readable The New York Times Truly gripping, stunning Salon Mesmerising Houston Chronicle An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence Vogue Best book I read this year -- Alex Massie (on twitter) Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does -- Lev Grossman Salon An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture Buzzfeed Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed Los Angeles Times The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace Time The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut The Week A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut O, The Oprah Magazine As dark and funny as anything I have read this year Washington Post Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon Playboy

Publisher's description. A genre-bending work of literary reportage. The profound and the absurd come face to face in this extraordinary auto-fiction expose, as a bookish young woman stumbles across the bizarre underworld of professional cage fighting. Unexpectedly hooked on the spectacle, she befriends fighters and chases fights, becoming ever more entangled in the macabre, blackly comic and ultimately heart-breaking drama of the octagon. Penguin Compulsively readable The New York Times Truly gripping, stunning Salon Mesmerising Houston Chronicle An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence Vogue Best book I read this year -- Alex Massie (on twitter) Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does -- Lev Grossman Salon An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture Buzzfeed Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed Los Angeles Times The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace Time The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut The Week A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut O, The Oprah Magazine As dark and funny as anything I have read this year Washington Post Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon Playboy

Compulsively readable The New York Times Truly gripping, stunning Salon Mesmerising Houston Chronicle An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence Vogue Best book I read this year -- Alex Massie (on twitter) Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does -- Lev Grossman Salon An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture Buzzfeed Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed Los Angeles Times The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace Time The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut The Week A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut O, The Oprah Magazine As dark and funny as anything I have read this year Washington Post Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon Playboy

Author Information

Kerry Howley is the author of Thrown, published by Hamish Hamilton. Howley's essays, reviews, stories and reportage have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Slate,The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Vice.com, and frequently in Bookforum. Her short story 'Pretty Citadel' was published in The Paris Review in Autumn 2011. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was admitted as an Arts Fellow and subsequently served as the 2012 Provost's Visiting Writer in Nonfiction. Howley teaches creative writing at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

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