Gardner's only novel, first published in 1969 and long out of print. Recently reissued by University of California Press. The story of two washed-up amateur boxers stuck in Stockton, California, and going nowhere fast. Denis Johnson calls it "a book so precisely written and giving such value to its words that I felt I could almost read it with my fingers, like Braille." Adapted by John Huston into a fine film, starring a very young Jeff Bridges and Stacy Keach (1972). We currently have copies.
