The Knockout Artist

Crews’s (A Feast of Snakes) captivating tale, first published in 1988 and now available in audio, immerses listeners in the gritty world of boxing. Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia, has a dubious claim to fame—he can knock himself out with a single punch to the jaw. Eugene supports himself by showcasing this peculiar skill in venues across New Orleans’s unflinchingly harsh underworld, but after over 70 self-inflicted knockouts, his talent is losing its charm. As Eugene reassesses his path, he becomes entwined with Charity, a wealthy PhD candidate who views him as a rich source of information for her questionable project. Narrator Matt Godfrey captures Crews’s sharp insights and distinctive prose with spot-on inflections and a reflective tone. Godfrey’s portraits of Crews’s eccentric characters and their canny observations about the world make an impact.