Michael Winkler (1)

Actually Lives Up to its Blurbs
Review of the Peninsula Press (UK) paperback edition (2023) of the self-published Australian paperback original (2021).

The strangest book you are likely to read this year. - cover blurb (on some editions) by author J.M. Coetzee.

Some critics has suggested antecedents and comparisons for the experimental literary approach… other people just like the swearing goat. - author Michael Winkler describes reactions to the book.

When I say "blurbs", I mean especially the one from J.M. Coetzee. But you can see a further considerable number of blurbs and review quotes for Grimmish at the Coach House Books page for the book's North American edition here.

This is one mindbender of a fiction/non-fiction historical novel which is only superficially about its lead protagonist, Italian-American boxer Joe Grim (1881-1939) variously known as "The Iron Man" and "The Human Punching Bag" due to the amount of brutal pounding he could withstand in the ring without being knocked out and always going the distance in rounds, even if most of his fights were loses.

See photo at https://onmilwaukee.com/images/articles/jo/joegrim/joegrim_fullsize_story1.jpg
Photograph of Joe Grim. Image sourced from On Milwaukee.

Author Winkler frames the non-fiction story of Grim's 1908-09 tour of Australia (where he was a sparring partner with both Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns prior to their Dec. 26, 1908 World Heavyweight Championship bout in Sydney, Australia) with a fictional meta-fiction of a writer visiting his aging 'uncle' who has accumulated a lifetime's research into the boxer after being an unofficial part of the pugilist's Australian ring-team. But then it gets surreal as the 'uncle' tells tales of his joining Grim in a walk across Australia with a talking swearing goat.

All of this is accompanied by copious footnotes, often using contemporary newspaper articles but sometimes just referring to related quotes which Winkler happens to like. The lines between the fictional nephew and author Winkler blur frequently and at times it seems as if it is Winkler walking with Grim while subject to the constant stream of 'fucks' and 'fucken' from the goat (is the choice of animal a wink at the Greatest Of All Time present day GOAT memes?).

You may think at first (as I did) that you would have no interest in a book supposedly about boxing. But Grimmish is something well beyond that, it is surreal, fantasy non-fiction if such a genre existed and it will keep you entertained and laughing (at and with the goat) throughout.

I read Grimmish as the June 2023 selection from the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month (BotM) club. Subscriptions to the BotM support the annual Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent publishers.

Other Reviews
The 'exploded non-fiction novel': Michael Winkler's Grimmish by Emmett Stinson, Overland Literary Journal, June 22, 2021.
Literature to Save Us by Oliver Mol, Sydney Review of Books, 2022.
The Pain-Eater by Alex Cothren, Australian Book Review, April 2022.

Soundtrack
Definitely had to go with Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson (1971) given the regular references to boxer Jack Johnson throughout this book. Primarily recorded at a 1970 session, the Jack Johnson album includes some bits from the 1969 In A Silent Way sessions when guitarist John McLaughlin asked Miles how he should play and Miles gave the legendary answer: "Play as if you don't know how to play the guitar." Mclaughlin's splintery playing was the result.

Trivia and Link
Author Michael Winkler introduces the book in a short video produced by Coach House Books (Canada) for the North American edition which you can see here.… (más)

This book comprises 112 sporting speeches. This includes 21 football speeches. These include some famous coaching pep talks by coaches such as Ron Barassi, John Kennedy, Kevin Sheedy and Alan Killigrew. More reflective pieces are by historians Geoffrey Blainey and Joy Damousi, writer Peter Rose, about his father, Collingwood great, Bob Rose, and Australian Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin's much quoted speech in 1908. A list of sources at the end only partially enables the speeches original time and context to be identified.… (más)