The Mighty Oak
by Jeff W. Bens
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Pub Date Sep 15 2020 | Archive Date Dec 07 2020
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Description
Tim O’Connor is paid to be violent. He plays for the El Paso Storm in the West Texas Hockey League. People call him Oak. He’s been an enforcer for longer than his hip or shoulder or back have been able to hold together. He is a broken machine of gristle and rage. And he has been away from home for too long.
He’s called back to Boston by his mother’s death. There he confronts a life he failed to live, a daughter he doesn’t know, and a body that is quickly breaking down. Still, he can’t conceive of a future without hockey, even as he chews oxycodone and Adderall to numb his injuries and steady his brain. When a brutal encounter with the police places him in the path of Joan Linney, a haunted public defender, and Kip, a boy with a brave face, Oak and his chance companions roam cold streets from Castle Island to Quincy Point, struggling to believe in a different future.
In spare, potent language, Jeff W. Bens builds a remarkable character from the skates up. The Mighty Oak is a visceral and emotional experience. The fact of Oak’s physical existence is powerfully rendered, and the bone-deep transformation of his character is one you will not soon forget.
A Note From the Publisher
Jeff W. Bens is the author of the novel Albert, Himself. He teaches at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.
Advance Praise
“The Mighty Oak introduces us to a character reminiscent of the great literary antiheroes. Written by Jeff W. Bens with an insight that balances the culturally astute and the brilliantly ambiguous with detours of unexpected humor, this is a portrait of an athlete’s multifaceted interior code: a hockey player, a brother, a father, a fighter, a lover, a friend. We lean in for a better understanding and discover a brilliant analysis of extraordinary talent and the vulnerabilities that often bleed from it.”
-David Gordon Green, director, Halloween, Stronger, East Bound and Down, Pineapple Express
“Meet Tim ‘Oak’ O’Connor, a goon made of blood, sweat, and scars, ice shavings, painkillers, dashed hopes, and stadium dreams. In swift, note-perfect prose, Jeff W. Bens introduces an unforgettable antihero in one of the best novels you’ll read this decade.”
-Kevin Cook, author of Tommy’s Honor and The Last Headbangers
“The best writing ransoms us from the captivity of self to allow glimpses of how the world looks to others, especially those radically unlike ourselves. From the first sentences, Jeff Bens drops us vividly, viscerally into the moment-to-moment of Tim O’Connor, a man who knows how it feels to lose vast expanses of self and world—and because he feels that loss, so do we.”
-James Sallis, author of Drive
“Jeff Bens is a wonderful writer. The Mighty Oak is a gripping tale of perseverance, so full of insight and energy, you won’t want it to end.”
-Justin Torres, We the Animals
“An incisive and incandescent portrait of an American male struggling with anger, delusions, and Oxycontin. Calling to mind the work of Richard Ford and Denis Johnson, The Mighty Oak hits the reader like a hockey stick to the face.”
-David Burr Gerrard, author of The Epiphany Machine
“A perfectly pitched hat trick of a book: a great sports novel, a tragedy of our opioid times, and the story of a man rediscovering what love is left in his heart. I loved every page.”
-Scott Cheshire, author of High as the Horses’ Bridles
“The Mighty Oak is a tense, spare, powerful novel. Bens has a finely calibrated voice that explodes off the page in a way that will remind readers of the very best of Raymond Carver or Richard Ford. Like Oak himself, this novel is heartfelt, headstrong, and unflinching.”
-Kristopher Jansma, author of Why We Came to the City
“A knock-out! Jeff Bens tackles male violence, the complexities of parenthood, and the contrary draw to both numbness and connection in wholly alive and thrilling ways.”
-Lisa Muskat, producer of Joe and All the Real Girls
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781982604165 |
| PRICE | $25.99 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Dave W, Reviewer
"The Mighty Oak" is a brilliantly-crafted impossible-to-stop-reading tale about a down-on-his-luck minor league hockey player. Tim O'Connor, aka Oak, is a lifetime minor leaguer, battered, beaten, bloodied, after a career as an enforcer on the ice, committed to putting on a show for the audience, a bloody show resulting in an opponent possibly being permanently scarred or missing an eye, a tooth, or other body parts. On the ice, Oak is Mike Tyson taking down Holyfield. He's an unstoppable force, chugging oxy and dexy and numbing himself to any pain. But as this point he's a broken wreck and he's taken far too many blows to the head.
A return home with his mother's death ought to be a chance to come to terms with his karma, but Oak only falls further and further into the pit of despair, lashing out at everything. Desperate for another chance and unable to pick himself up.
The story could've been about any sad sack end of the line boxer, wrestler, or Minot league footballer, giving up all for a chance to be in the game and seeing double because of all the hits. It may not matter what sport he played. What matters though is how good the action is, how compelling the story is, and how it's so much more than the run of the mill born loser story. This one's got what it takes.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.
Kinsey F, Reviewer
An emotional rollercoaster from start to finish, The Mighty Oak follows a down on his luck minor hockey league player who - upon returning to his home town for his mother's funeral - must confront the life and people he's left behind. With sympathetic characters and poignant, often lyrical, writing, this novel is equal parts a tribute to hockey as well as an examination over a life left largely unlived.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.
Octavia F, Reviewer
"The movies never, ever talk about the grind. Oak doesn't blame them. Who wants to see that for ten bucks?"
I didn't expect to like The Mighty Oak as much as I did.
The main character Tim aka Oak is a classic hockey goon, the enforcer, the guy who starts and finishes fights in the game, and off the ice is trying to work hard to have a better life. He grew up dreaming of playing in the NHL and instead has spent a lifetime playing in minor leagues and trying to stay above paying to play in a beer league. Along the way, he's had various injuries and in turn, developed an addiction to painkillers. He's got an ex and a kid back home who he hasn't seen in years and some foggy concussion memories of some bad past incidents.
When his mother dies and he decides to go home to Boston for her funeral he's contemplating how to get off the drugs and have a future without hockey. He can't envision what that means for him, but he knows his body just can't take it anymore.
I really enjoyed this look inside the head of a guy who you so rarely read about in fiction. He's very real and I felt his pain and grief in a visceral way. If this was a movie they wouldn't focus on his past or the fact he continues to make bad decisions, but instead about the underdog's way to redemption through love...which it is, just told in a much more realistic fashion where everyone is flawed. The cast of characters is an interesting mishmash of folks and I didn't see the ending coming.
A true tale of modern-day perseverance from a writer I'll be following.
If you like older coming-of-age/changing type stories, violence, hockey and want something like a Mark Wahlberg movie but without a corny ending this is the book for you,
4.5 stars rounded up.
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