Knockout

by John Jodzio

Overview

The work of John Jodzio has already made waves across the literary community. Some readers noticed his nimble blending of humor with painful truths reminded them of George Saunders. His creativity and fresh voice reminded others of Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. But with his new collection, Jodzio creates a class of his own.

Knockout is the unified collection of stories that create flawless portraits of deeply flawed figures on the edge of the American Dream. A recovering drug addict gets tricked into stealing a tiger. A man buys a used sex chair from his neighbor. A woman suffering from agoraphobia raises her son completely indoors. An alcoholic runs a bed and breakfast with the son from his deceased wife's first marriage. These people will admit that their chances have passed them by. These people know they were born on the wrong side of the tracks, and their dreams will remain unreachable, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming. Yet readers won't be fooled by the funny premises --Jodzio steers these stories into deeper places, creating a brilliant examination of those on the fringes of modern life.

With its quirky humor, compelling characters, and unexpected sincerity, Knockout by John Jodzio is poised to become his breakout book, drawing a wide readership to this provocative and talented young writer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781593766351
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.49(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

John Jodzio is a winner of the Loft-McKnight Fellowship and the author of the short story collections Get In If You Want To Live (Paper Darts Press) and If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home (Replacement Press). His work has been featured in a variety of places including This American Life, McSweeney's, and One Story. He lives in Minneapolis.

Editorial Reviews

John Jodzio's entire collection is tremendously funny and well written, every story inventive and a pleasure to read.

The New York Times Book Review - David Vann

01/25/2016
In this collection of fiercely funny and often satirical portraits, Jodzio (If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home) focuses on the quirkiness of everyday people. These stories share a casual and comic tone, and many feature an unnamed narrator. In “Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks,” the protagonist attends a neighbor’s garage sale. The narrator reveals that he was having an affair with Ackerman’s recently deceased wife, Elaine, and attends the garage sale in hopes of getting a glimpse at the life he could have had. “The Piss Test Place” revolves around a guy who gets a job at a drug-testing center after his metal band breaks up. While dealing with a ruined engagement and his ailing father, the narrator of “Our Mom and Pop Opium Den” has his family business threatened when a large opium chain opens on the same street (though set in America, the exact locations are left vague). The premise of each story is clearly defined in its title and opening paragraphs, but these narratives avoid predictability. In the title story, a man learns how to incapacitate living creatures by pinching their necks, a skill he learned during his time at a drug-rehabilitation facility. Later, while trying to adjust to life at home with his father, a friend recruits him to steal and sell a tiger. Each sentence conveys the notion that anything could happen, and most of the stories lead to purposeful but surprising conclusions. Jodzio’s clean, quick, biting prose demonstrates a firm grasp of storytelling. He grounds the oddness of each narrative with believable human interactions: poignant moments where characters share meaningful connections. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"John Jodzio's entire collection is tremendously funny and well written, every story inventive and a pleasure to read." --New York Times Book Review

"It's difficult to write with emotional honesty about the people on the very edge of society, the misfits among misfits. But even when he writes with humor, Jodzio never treats his characters as a joke. He's a compassionate writer who is refreshingly unafraid to take risks, and his book is, well, a knockout." --National Public Radio

"With Knockout, his third collection of stories, Minneapolis writer John Jodzio proves his devotion to the form... Jodzio has a gift for the wacky compelling premise, and deploys a deceptively casual voice -- calling to mind George Saunders -- to create screwed-up, deeply sympathetic characters... The collection crackles with energy, its tales jolting in unexpected directions." --Minnesota Star Tribune

"Minneapolis writer John Jodzio creates darkly humorous short stories about people on the fringes." --Minnesota Public Radio

"Our chronicler of the fundamentally flawed dreamers who exist both at the periphery of society and quietly inside each of us is back with a darkly quirky collection that includes tales of crippling agoraphobics, secondhand sex chair buyers, and a 15-year-old who forms an unlikely alliance with a homeless helium junky." --Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

"John Jodzio's short stories are powder kegs of wit, vice, and human frailty... Pithy, unrestrained, and entertaining, Jodzio's prose puts the reader in the headspace of the depraved and managed to evoke empathy for their plights." --Crave

"Knockout almost seems to good to be true... Jodzio's characters are likable for the sheer fact they are so real, so human. This is a writer in top form, and Knockout is aptly titled." --Litreactor

"John Jodzio is a Minneapolis-based short story writer and literary journal darling with a devout following. His compelling tales couple bizarre circumstances with freakishly flawed characters but are emotionally authentic enough to make you wonder if they might be inspired by real life." --CityPages

"We like John Jodzio's short fiction a lot... So it's probably not surprising that we're eager to read his latest collection..." --Vol. 1 Brooklyn

"In this collection of fiercely funny and often satirical portraits, Jodzio focuses on the quirkiness of everyday people... Jodzio's clean, quick, biting prose demonstrates a firm grasp of storytelling. He grounds the oddness of each narrative with believable human interactions: poignant moments where characters share meaningful connections." --Publishers Weekly

"A breakout book of short stories that packs a wicked punch... These 17 well-crafted tales, most first person, most short, are tight, funny, and bizarre--each is its own absurd world made real... Dark, grim, and sardonically funny, Jodzio's stories stick like gum to the side of your brain and won't shake loose." --Kirkus

"Knockout is full of memorable outcasts, underdogs, losers, and oddballs -- and the wondrously imaginative John Jodzio sets these lonely, alienated souls loose in a darkly absurd world that's simultaneously humorous, perverse, and moving." --J Ryan Stradal, author of the New York Times bestselling Kitchens of the Great Midwest

"Take a time out to read John Jodzio's Knockout, you won't regret it." --Kristen Schaal, co-star of The Last Man on Earth and commentator for The Daily Show

"Knockout feels like a collection of one's cherished treasures. There's the gemstone, the tar-splashed rock, the gold safety pin, the folded note, each story an object that feels imbued with life. John Jodzio has crafted a book that inspires a kind of wistful euphoria, an assembled, precious hoard that demands revisiting and reliving." --Lindsay Hunter, author of Ugly Girls and Don't Kiss Me

Praise for If You Lived Here You'd Already be Home

"You may think you've read enough stories about penniless gay clowns who can't get over the loss of a dog, but - I assure you - you have not. John Jodzio is the best kind of modern fiction writer: a thematic traditionalist who feels totally new." --Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

"John Jodzio's wonderful collection, If You Lived Here You'd Already be Home, is a set of colorful and seemingly fractured tales, each shining brilliantly alone, but also growing more vibrant as one story lays over another. Together they form an intricately stained glass window that looks out onto a whole new world." --Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

Praise for Get in if You Want to Live

"Get in if You Want to Live is lovely and captivating. Every page looks great." --Fred Armisen, Saturday Night Live and Portlandia

"John Jodzio is one of those weirdos that is fun to spend time with - not in real life, of course, but on the page - because his stories are laugh-out-loud funny and have a strange, uncanny, and memorable edge to them. And even if you don't like to read, his book has cool pictures. It was totally worth the $200 I paid for it." --Dan Chaon, National Book Award Finalist, Stay Awake and Await Your Reply

"Get in if You Want to Live is full of genuine laughs for the LOL generation. It's fantastical whimsy meets potty mouth, gutter mind brilliance with some beautifully twisted artwork to accompany poignantly filthy stories." --Kat George, Thought Catalog

From the Publisher

2015-12-23
A breakout book of short stories that packs a wicked punch. This is Jodzio's third story collection (If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, 2010, etc.). A Jodzio story's lineage is by way of George Saunders, Kelly Link, and Mark Leyner. His roots are in flash fiction, and he has learned how to put a little more meat on those bones. These 17 well-crafted tales, most first person, most short, are tight, funny, and bizarre—each is its own absurd world made real. The characters are misfits and losers who can't seem to get a break but remain hopeful dreamers. In the title story, two guys just post-rehab have discovered how to knock out animals using a Spock-like pinch behind the neck. When they try to do it on a neighbor's tiger in order to sell it for drug money, things go terribly wrong. "The Indoor Baby" is about an agoraphobic woman who's convinced that the "womb is the most indoorsy organ of all" and won't let her baby go outside. A son who runs his mom and pop's opium den must compete with a brand-new big-box Opium Depot store across the street. In "Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks," the narrator misses Ackerman's wife so much he has to buy something she once sat in. In "Duplex," the longest story, a young man rents a room from Jayhole, a retired bounty hunter, whose previous roommate killed himself because he couldn't take Jayhole's perverse sense of humor. Some stories are too slight and a bit dull, but the others are sharp, shiny, and dangerous. Dark, grim, and sardonically funny, Jodzio's stories stick like gum to the side of your brain and won't shake loose.

Kirkus Reviews