3.0
Donnybrook
ByPublisher Description
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.
is exactly the fearless, explosive, amphetamine-fueled debut novel you'd expect from the author of the feted and fearless story collection
.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesDonnybrook Reviews
3.0
“Frank Bill’s writing is operatic and I literally cannot get enough of it!”
“We were first introduced to the idea of a Donnybrook in Frank Bill’s debut short story collection https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10713935.Crimes_in_Southern_Indiana_Stories . In “Cold, Hard Truth” unemployed and desperate Bellmont McGill kills his father-in-law so he can inherit his plot of land in Orange County, Indiana and hold a 3-day bare-knuckles tournament to rack in serious cash. Donnybrook picks up some time later and details how this redneck festival became legend and sometimes the only glimmer of hope as the winner takes home a cool hundred grand in prize money.
I’ve had this book on my To-Be-Read pile for some time but was reluctant to start it as I am not too enthusiastic on reading about fighting. It makes my eyes glaze over. But I was wrong. The majority of this book details the wrongdoings of a wide cast of characters as they eventually make their way to the Donnybrook. If you liked his first book I am sure this one will not disappoint.
Frank Bill, along with other authors such as Daniel Woodrell and Donald Ray Pollock, are part of an emerging literary crime sub-genre that deals specifically with those individuals left behind in the economically depressed heartland of America. With the departure of manufacturing jobs and other legal sources of income individuals will do just about anything to survive. To read more see - http://litreactor.com/columns/its-more-than-just-meth-labs-and-single-wides-a-rural-noir-primer . Some people call it Hick Lit or Rural Noir. An official title has not been established yet but one thing I do know is that it is brutal high octane reading.
I would not be surprised if there will eventually be a sequel to Donnybrook. Frank Bill seems to like to include common characters and locations throughout his works. He ended this one pretty wide open to future misadventures for his characters.”
“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”
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?
