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The Longshot
- Author: Katie Kitamura
- Category: Fiction Debut Literary
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (UK) / The Free Press (US)
- Pub date: 1 June 2009
- Length: 208 pages
About The Longshot
An extraordinary novel from a major new talent. In taut, pared-down prose, Kitamura takes the reader right into the ring. Kitamura’s understanding of the psychological dimension of this brutally physical sport is uncanny and never less than convincing
– Hari Kunzru
The Longshot is an acutely well balanced novel: deft, subtle and hard-hitting all at once. While it fits into an honourable tradition of fight novels it also stands back from the trope of bruised machismo that runs through them. Instead, what’s on offer is a disquisition on hope, hurt and vulnerability that’s heartbreakingly acute. In comparison to the flurry of kicks and punches flying in the ring, Katie Kitamura has conjured a style that is spare, elegant and controlled; deadly in its scrutinizing gaze… I am knocked out
– Ekow Eshun
This is a terrific debut: charged, intimate, raw. Here is an author who not only understands the alloying of muscle and mentality in sport, the elation and heartbreak of competition, and of life, but can also write about it all with compassion and beautiful austerity
– Sarah Hall, author of THE ELECTRIC MICHAELANGELO and THE CARHULLAN ARMY
With refreshingly unadorned prose, Kitamura reduces to an intensely crystalline moment the tension surrounding a fighter and his coach as they prepare for a match. Kitamura’s language sticks to the page with a delightful monocular clarity that invites readers to enter into the minds of these two men. The Longshot gives readers a rare glimpse into an intriguing world
– Yannick Murphy, author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari
Terse, elegant, thoughtful and economical… Her writing is spare and graceful, her ear for dialogue precise, and she writes with the kind of controlled, compressed passion that produces literary gems
– Jon Fasman, author of The Geographer’s Library and The Unpossessed City
Hemingway’s returned to life – and this time, he’s a woman
– Tom McCarthy
Finalist, 2010 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
The sound of the second punch just carved through the air. Get hit like that and the body walked away from the fight. The mind didn’t remember that kind of feeling. The mind was conditioned to forget. Everything about the mind and the body was conditioned to forget…
In a novel of rare beauty, Katie Kitamura charts the story of two old friends, Cal and Riley, as together they prepare for the comeback bout they hope will define Cal’s once thunderous fighting career. Travelling to Mexico to face prize fighter and old enemy Rivera, Cal and Riley reflect on a life of shattered expectations and their last chance for a moment of glory in the ring.
Bringing to life the raw agonies and ecstasies of the American fight scene with a masterful simplicity, THE LONGSHOT is an iconic novel of male friendship, of victory and defeat, triumph and disaster.
THE LONGSHOT is currently being developed into a feature film by Peter Berg (best known for Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom and Hancock).
About the Author
Katie Kitamura was born in 1979 and brought up in California and Japan. She now lives between London and New York. She was educated at Princeton University (A.B.) and University of London (MRes, PhD), and is currently a Honorary Research Fellow at the London Consortium. She has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Guardian, Wired and Frieze; her first book, JAPANESE FOR TRAVELLERS, was published in 2006 by Hamish Hamilton.
She served as Creative Consultant on The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema (2006), a three part documentary series commissioned by Channel 4 Television and featuring philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek. Her first novel, THE LONGSHOT, was published in 2009 by Simon & Schuster and Free Press. It was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and is currently being developed into a feature film by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, Hancock).