Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine by Thom Jones Review

Amateur teen boxer Kid Dynamite doesn’t know quite what he wants to do in life just yet - continue with school, get a job, marry his girl Melanie? - but he knows what he wants in the short-term: beat Louis Reine, the kid who beat him last year, in his next boxing match.

This is my first time reading Thom Jones (I’m gonna refrain from making the obvious joke as I’m sure it’s not unusual to make fun of his name - dammit!) and I was pleasantly surprised to find his short story, Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine, was pretty decent.

We get a good idea of who Kid Dynamite is and his world - the tension with his stepfather, his sweet relationship with Melanie - as well as the larger story, which is a coming-of-age tale, where he’s aware that he’s not good enough to be a professional boxer and that he’s going to have to decide what to do instead of this; but also that he’s too obsessed with boxing at this moment in time to give it up.

I loved the scene where Kid Dynamite goes to watch Sonny Liston train for his upcoming fight with Floyd Patterson (which he would win to become heavyweight champion of the world) as it’s a vivid portrait of the soon-to-be champ. I don’t know if Jones ever met him but he convincingly brings Liston to life, conveying his sheer power beautifully as well as his personality when he briefly jokes with Kid Dynamite after the session.

You also get a sense of the doom associated with boxing - Kid Dynamite’s father, who used to box, is in the nuthouse (which was also the fate of Jones’ father), foreshadowing Liston’s own sad, premature demise a few years later. The ending feels a little too neat but it’s also a happy one for Kid Dynamite, not just because of the result of his fight, but because his fate is going to be different from those who stick with the brutal sport.

As well-written as the story is, it’s missing a certain something to really stand out - a surprise element and/or a unique scene or character. Maybe it’s the limitation of the subject matter but all boxing stories to me seem to gel together into the same kind of story. But also, stories this well-written and rounded feel artificial and hollow - they’re too safe, in a way literary stories can be - and that holds it back from really connecting with the reader; you’re always aware that you’re reading a made-up story so you never really lose yourself in it. I got an idea of who Kid Dynamite is but never saw him as a person, just a contrived character in a piece of fiction.

Still, Thom Jones clearly knew how to write and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine is a solid short story about boxing. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in the subject but, also, even if you are, it’s nothing so essential that you’re missing anything by not reading it either.