”These are hands that can offer protection
But hid me from my own reflection
I’m that book that ain’t finished, a sink full of dishes,
The horse that ain’t winning, the priest that’s still sinning
The spark that starts the fire

“I am the fighter, though not a boxer by trade
I am the fighter, few will remember my name”
--The Fighter, lyrics by Bon Jovi

His life seems destined from his beginning, the moment when his parents leave him outside the donation door at a Salvation Army secondhand store in Tunica, Mississippi, wearing only a drooping diaper, with a backpack holding diapers, random socks and a few shirts, with his green army men tossed casually beside him. Driving away without him, two years old, left behind like clothes they bought in haste, and never really cared for. The door would open, then, and the two women working would pick him up, and carry him inside wondering what the world had come to that a child could be so casually discarded.

”I pity those who have to live behind me in this weary and heartless world.” one woman said to the other.

And for a while, that moment was in all the moments that would follow him. A door would open for him for a while, only to be closed down the road. Another door would open, and that would be where he would stay until that door would close, as well.

By the time he was twelve, Jack Boucher had been in four foster homes, two group homes, had attended five different schools. So when they came to him once again, and told him to ”gather his things”, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he didn’t view this place as a place he should count on staying.

” A white antebellum with a porch stretching across the front on the bottom and top floors. Flaking paint on the sun side and vines hanging in baskets along the porch with their twisted and green trails swaying in the wind. A woman sat in a rocker and she rose to meet them. She wore work gloves and she pulled them off and tossed them on the ground as she approached the van as if readying herself for whatever may be climbing out.”

She would be the one, this woman, who would care for him from then on, his foster mother who offered him a home, and love. She would try to steer him away from his desire to make a living with his bare knuckles and brute strength, and would ultimately fail in that, but she never failed him.

And now? She’s in a care facility, and Jack’s on the verge of saving the two-hundred-year-old home, and the land that was her family legacy from the bank, and others. No matter how broken and bruised his body, and the agonizing pain he endures from decades of fighting, he is on his way back to pay off debts owed.

Jack is battle-weary, broken and bruised. His energy is consumed by never-ending pain, with little left to give to managing or improving his life. The repeated blows to his head have created problems for him memory-wise, so he’s taken to writing down what things he does remember, people he knows he should avoid, people who are, or were, his friends.

When he meets a young woman, a believer in her own religion-of-sorts, the church of coincidences, she sees fate behind this auspicious meeting and begins to try to convince him that sometimes fate does intercede.

Set in the Mississippi Delta region, there is a gritty realism to this story, a dark view of this world, perhaps, but there is redemption and perhaps even light when you find someone or somewhere that you can finally call home.

Pub Date: 20 Mar 2018


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Little, Brown & Company

No one writes desperation quite like Michael Farris Smith. He writes characters who have given all they can possibly give, who have their back against the wall, who have a hard life, who don't have any steam left, who have already dug down deep into their souls for that last bit of strength...he writes about survivors, the downtrodden, the damaged and the fighters. He writes about pain, both physical and emotional. It all so very sad and yet beautiful at the same time. He is a gifted writer who draws you into his characters bleak world and shows you that last little bit of light they still have burning deep down inside of them.

The unforgiving Mississippi Delta sets the stage for this book. Jack is a fighter. In many ways, he has been a fighter his entire life. Abandoned as a baby, he was placed in foster care and eventually found a home with his foster mother, Maryann. Both were outcasts in a way - Jack the foster kid, Maryann a lesbian who society looked down upon. Both fought in their own quiet ways against the views and harsh judgement of society, until one day, Jack decided to use his fists. From that point on, there was no turning back. Now, Jack is in debt to Big Momma Sweet, the queen of the Delta vice who in unforgiving and who Jack owes a large sum of money. Maryann is in a nursing home and Jack is dealing with the physical ravages of being a fighter- severe headaches and bodily pains. He has been broken and beaten so many times he must write things down in a notebook, so he can remember them. In the delta, there is no rest for the weary. All he wants is to be done and pay his debt. But life is not kind and circumstances beyond his control pop up and forces him to fight for his memory, his life and his chance at paying off his debt.

While reading this book, I thought of the movie "The Wrestler". The story-lines are not the same, but the themes are: a man, past his prime, pushing himself to the limit. Struggling against not only his mind, but his body to have glory one last time. Again, that word "desperation" pops up. Will Jack's story end with a happy ending or a blaze of glory?

Jack is not alone in this book. He also becomes introduced to a 23-year-old tattooed carnival worker who is looking for answers on a quest to get them. Will a chance encounter between Jack and Annette, be the answer they both are looking for? Can rights ever be wronged?

Michael Farris Smith is such a gifted Author. He doesn't write fairy tales folks, he writes about raw pain, using real characters who struggle and have scars. I feel as if I am in the hands of a master when reading a novel by Smith. He knows how to write pain, he knows how to write redemption, desperation and hope. I don't know what else to say except fans of Smith will not be disappointed. Beautifully written and moving, The Fighter does not disappoint. Highly recommend!

"To be alive at all is to have scars." (John Steinbeck)

A man unable........backtracked to a boy unable.

Abandoned to a second-hand life behind a second-hand store alley at the age of two. Strange how that old, dilapitated sign "No Younguns" on the brick wall hung unread by the heartless.

Jack Boucher gripped the handle of his well-worn suitcase. His was the temporary life of foster home after foster home circling the Mississippi Delta. Defiance filtered through rejection expected as day-old bitter grounds perculating on the back stove. An acrid brew swirling in a chipped cup.

Until the old truck pulled up at the bright white house and Maryann stepped out on the porch. Jack's hands formed fists and he was ready to run to the ends of those 200 acre fields into oblivion. She stood her ground and so did he. Both of them dumped out of the paper sack of life. Maryann rocking passively on that porch giving in to social mores. Jack drawing out those scabbed fists time and again on the playground. Both fighting the seen and the unseen.

Michael Farris Smith knows how to create the walking wounded displaced by an indifferent society. His main character of Jack is engulfed in the quicksand of mounting debts and the ragged claws of addiction. Big Momma Sweet waits for no one. She's already sent out Skelly armed with knife in hand as her calling card. Jack's lifelong nomad life as a backdoor fighter has left him mentally and physically depleted. Does he have one more fight left in him to beat out the foreclosure on Maryann's house? Can he bring her back from the obscurity of her last breaths?

I can only say that reading Farris Smith is like being immersed in the gentleness of waves on the Mississippi while, at the same time, feeling the deep jaggedness of the rocks far below. His characters are raw and unfiltered and brimming with the underbelly of life. Jack faces insurmountable odds. It is a similar theme weaving through Desperation Road which is one of my all-time favorite reads........ever. Another memorable and gut-wrenching read from this highly talented author. Bravo, Michael Farris Smith.

I received a copy of The Fighter through NetGalley for an honest opinion. My thanks to Little, Brown and Company and Michael Farris Smith for the opportunity.