©2025 Fable Group Inc.
3.5 

Donnybrook

By Frank Bill
Donnybrook by Frank Bill digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

A bareknuckle fighter must win a brutal tournament to feed his family in “a novel that guts the underbelly of southern Indiana”—now a major motion picture (Kirkus Reviews).

The Donnybrook is a three-day bare-knuckle tournament held on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks of southern Indiana. Twenty fighters. One wire-fence ring. Fight until only one man is left standing while a rowdy festival of onlookers—drunk and high on whatever’s on offer—bet on the fighters.

Jarhead is a desperate man who’d do just about anything to feed his children. He’s also the toughest fighter in southeastern Kentucky, and he’s convinced that his ticket to a better life is one last fight with a cash prize so big it’ll solve all his problems. But he’ll have to face Chainsaw Angus—an undefeated fighter who recently got into cooking meth with his sister, Liz.

As we travel through the backwoods to get to the Donnybrook, we meet a cast of nasty, ruined characters driven to all sorts of evil, all in the name of getting their fix—drugs, violence, sex, money, honor. Donnybrook is exactly the fearless, explosive, amphetamine-fueled debut novel you’d expect from the author of the feted and fearless story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana.

Download the free Fable app

app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities
app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

28 Reviews

3.5
“13/1 - This is some seriously sick writing! I don't know why the police even bother trying to catch the criminals, just let them kill each other (and themselves) and don't get in their way. Frank Bill has one of the most twisted imaginations (well, I hope it's his imagination) that I've ever read. He's possibly only bested by Edward Lorn, due to the horror factor that's an added bonus in Lorn's books. Bill's writing doesn't really have horror, as it feels too close to the truth of life in Southern Indiana (or anywhere else where corrugated iron shacks and rundown caravans are the best you can expect when it comes to accommodation). This is my second Bill book and now thanks to his horrifying imagery I now get the same feeling regarding visiting Southern Indiana as I do when contemplating the likelihood of my entering a dank and dark basement whose lights don't work - it is NOT happening. To be continued... 14/1 - There's just dead people (and their blood, brains, and guts) and meth everywhere. We're following a number of different characters on their individual journeys to Donnybrook (some kind of giant, famous, bare-knuckle fight with a $100,000 prize). Everywhere the characters turn there's dead people, or people that need to be made dead, getting in their way. Meth and death, makes for an interesting combination. There's only one possibly sympathetic character - Jarhead, a husband and father who committed armed robbery in order to acquire the money necessary for the buy-in at Donnybrook. He's the only one who hasn't killed anyone or cooked some meth, quite an achievement for this area of Southern Indiana. To be continued... 15/1 - God, what a mess! Not the writing, that was perfect for the type of book it was - broken, jumpy sentences with some of the best 'fight' writing I've ever read. The mess was the climactic Donnybrook scenes at the end - hundreds of drunk and drugged spectators turning into hundreds of drunk and drugged attackers. Everyone attacking everyone else, using anything that came to hand as a weapon, even (I can imagine, it wasn't actually said) other attacker's body parts when necessary. The end of the book talks about something bad coming, and it feels like there's going to be a sequel or some kind of follow up book. 3.5 stars, but I'm feeling generous. PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge: A Book with a One-Word Title”

About Frank Bill

Frank Bill is the author of the story collection Crimes in Southern Indiana, one of GQ's favorite books of 2011 and a Daily Beast best debut of 2011. He lives and writes in southern Indiana. Donnybrook is his first novel.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB