Order DONNYBROOK here
Order CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA here
"If State Police forensics match fingerprints and ballistics from that brass on the floor to the other two murders, I'd say Harrison Country has got more than a meth problem. It's got a world of shit."
Frank Bill is bound to become a culturally important writer. In fact, he already is. He published pieces in high-profile magazines such as Granta, Playboy and the New York Times. What I'm saying is that he's bound to be a lot more popular than he is now. He will become remembered-and-read-long-after-he-died popular. It's because his crime fiction addresses the stark reality of the good people of Southern Indiana. Bill speaks his own vernacular and narrates the most terrible situations with a broken tenderness in his voice. DONNYBROOK is his long-awaited debut novel. In 2011, CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA conquered everybody's heart, including mine and raised the bar for Bill's first novel, the object by which we measure an author's legacy. DONNYBROOK is quite different from its predecessor, but it got the job done. Frank Bill, you have raised the bar on yourself again.
There is this three-day long bareknuckles fighting tournament in Southern Indiana called the donnybrook. It's a last-man-standing kind of deal and it costs a thousand dollars to get in. So only the most rugged, desperate men enter the tournament, hoping to cash-in on the mythical payoff that would grant them a new life. Among these men, Johnny "Jarhead" Earl, a family man down on his luck, who will stop at nothing to provide; Chainsaw Angus, once a legendary fighter, now a meth addict and several other shadowy figures who take interest in the donnybrook for their own reasons: gangster and martial artist Fu Xi, methhead Ned and strange mystic Purcell, who seem to read into the events one step ahead of anybody. There's a lot of money hanging over a lot of people who don't have much and don't have a lot to do, you can expect things to go south. This is one hell of a euphemism to describe how bad things go.
I took a while to understand what DONNYBROOK was about. This is a quite different book from CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA who was slower, quieter and more contemplative. DONNYBROOK is wilder and more lyrical. Anthony Neil Smith, a favorite of mine and arguably the first person I've met that championed Bill's writing said it best: "I felt like reading a redneck space opera in another language." That embodies DONNYBROOK better than I possibly ever could. There is little of that intimate point of view, very little people to root for, just a flowing river of death and blood where damned souls gleefully dive in. Bill achieved the seemingly impossible when it comes to crime fiction and made his novel NOT about "the money", instead tuned himself into the vivid despair and the alienation of his characters to create something both unique and theatrical. More than anything, Bill's unique style is the star of the show.
Ned reached with both hands and tugged at his leg, the tibia and fibula chinked and spurred. His boot filled with blood. He'd stepped into an old, rusted animal trap.
Liz shadowed over him. Her face resembled smashed prunes as she took in the pulpy moisture that spread through his jeans. His knuckled lips twitched, and he begged, " Don't just stand there gawking, you morbid cunt. Help get my ankle free."
What I also found interesting, is the vision Frank Bill showed when using the term: "donnybrook." As he implied when he gave the definition in the epigraph, it's not just about the fights. A donnybrook is a disagreement, an uproar, an explosive situation. So there is a donnybrook within the donnybrook, feel me? The whole novel revolved around a chain of events that started because of the fights. The novel follows the chain of greed, despair, destruction and death provoked by one man's personal desire to hold the goriest possible backwoods fighting event. This is where DONNYBROOK score some cultural points as it rather gracefully exposes something that's going on in the U.S right now: normal people being pushed in unfair places by private interests.
I dug DONNYBROOK a bit like I dug THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, as a spectacle. It doesn't mean it's not deep, but it's meant to be enjoyed in a cathartic way. When you willingly drag the worst out of men, you have to abandon the idea you control anything, whatever you think money and power can buy. I'm sure DONNYBROOK will polarize the fans and critics alike because it's very different from CRIMES IN SOUTHERN INDIANA, who was a charmer and that it embraces something that's quite unnerving: the path to chaos. Obviously, I was charmed but not every reader likes to be disturbed like I do. Frank Bill won't escape his fate. He is bound to do great things and DONNYBROOK is one of them.
FOUR STARS