The Longshot - by Katie Kitamura (Paperback)

About the Book

A brilliant, spare debut novel that follows a former mixed martial arts star and his longtime coach over the course of three fraught days as they prepare for his momentous comeback match.

Book Synopsis

Abrilliant, spare debut novel that follows a former mixed martial arts star and his longtime coach over the course of three fraught days as they prepare for his momentous comeback match. Four years after Rivera knocked Cal from dominance, Cal's coach, Riley, has set up a rematch--it will be good for Cal, and he's ready for it. He's been training harder than ever, trying to shake the lethargy that's plagued him ever since he lost. Knowing he's going to face Rivera again, he gets his focus and energy back. He agrees with Riley: he's ready. But Rivera has never lost a fight, and in the final days before the match, both Cal and Riley secretly begin to doubt that he can be beaten now. The stakes are high for them--not only do they have no idea what else they'll do with themselves besides MMA, they're also desperate not to let each other down. In taut, rhythmic language, Katie Kitamura--a journalist who has followed MMA for years--renders the urgency, discipline, and mutual affection of athlete and coach with depth and subtlety. As an excruciating tension builds toward the final electrifying scene, their plight becomes our plight, the looming fight becomes every challenge each of us has ever taken on, however uncertain the outcome. This striking debut upholds a tradition of literary writing about gritty subject matter that includes Denis Johnson and Norman Mailer and goes back through Dos Passos, Steinbeck, and Hemingway. Fans of literary fiction will be drawn to The Finish's stylized, sensitive portrait of two men striving to stay true to themselves and each other in the only way they know how.

Review Quotes

"In her debut novel, The Longshot, Katie Kitamura delivers the reader into the exotic, bruising, and hypermasculine world of mixed martial arts with startling economy and even more startling insight...Kitamura excels at slicing and dicing to build tension. Hers is a dry-eyed viewpoint expressed through detail so sharp freeze-frames seem to turn kinetic. One lesson of The Longshot is you must fulfill your commitments, if only to find out what you're made of. Another is that Kitamura is a major talent." -- Boston Globe

About the Author

Katie Kitamura has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times and The Guardian (London). She served as Creative Consultant on the documentaries The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) and The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (forthcoming). Kitamura lives in London and New York City.