Last month, Max Larkin interviewed Fat City author Leonard Gardner on Radio Open Source. Their conversation covered the similarities between boxing and writing, what makes a boxer, and more. Of Fat City, Larkin says:
“There’s something special about Fat City… It’s a book about boxing on its surface, but it’s a book that seems to sum up a whole world of American literature before it. Steinbeck’s books of field work—Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle—it seems to capture a little bit of Hemingway, and the Hemingway hero… It’s got a lot of noir to it, a lot of hard-boiled fatalistic California stories, but there's also a little anticipation of Rocky. It’s not about champion boxing, it’s just about boxing as a way to get out the drudgery of Stockton, California. About trying to be somebody."
Listen to the full interview here.