Simon & Schuster recently published a literary novel with an MMA theme titled The Longshot. Author is a petite Ivy League graduate, fomer ballet dancer, with a PhD from the University of London, called Katie Kitamura. No, not that kind of ballet.
The reviews are impetuous. Their defense is impregnable, they’re just ferocious. IThey want your heart. They want to eat your children.
Actrually the reviews are pretty ecstatic:
“If you’re planning to get into the ring with the heavyweights of boxing lit (A.J. Liebling’s The Sweet Science, Leonard Gardner’s Fat City), you need a knockout hook. Katie Kitamura, in her debut novel, has one.”
Entertainment Weekly
“Kitamura’s descriptions of mixed-martial-arts fighting are brutal yet beautiful….Her writing is spellbinding…in its power. Kitamura is a genuine discovery.”
Booklist, starred review
*FRAT warning for this one*
“In her debut novel, The Longshot, Katie Kitamura delivers the reader into the exotic, bruising, and hypermasculine world of mixed martial arts with startling economy and even more startling insight…Kitamura excels at slicing and dicing to build tension. Hers is a dry-eyed viewpoint expressed through detail so sharp freeze-frames seem to turn kinetic. One lesson of The Longshot is you must fulfill your commitments, if only to find out what you’re made of. Another is that Kitamura is a major talent.”
Boston Globe
