For background on the author Thom Jones see the Wikipedia article.

If you read nothing else from this set of short stories, you must read the short story entitled “The Pugilist At Rest” for which the book is named. The above photos are different views of a Roman copy of the Greek original “Pugilist At Rest” attributed to Apollonius which copy is found in the Palazzo Massimo, Rome, Italy.

It helps if you read each of Jones’ short stories quickly as if you were having a manic attack because that’s fairly close to the author’s reality. Note that he suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy and diabetes. As noted in the Wikipedia, he has two more collection of short stories: Cold Snap (1995) and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (1999).

I just finished “Cold Snap” and I assure you it is just as manic as “Pugilist”. There are some wild and very explicit sex scenes. There is a lot of drug use. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Enjoy the roller-coaster ride!