SOURCE: Miller, Kevin. Review of The Pugilist at Rest, by Thom Jones. Ploughshares 19, nos. 2-3 (fall 1993): 241-42.

In the following review, Miller gives a lukewarm review of The Pugilist at Rest.

Already commercially successful, with half the entries previously in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Esquire, Thom Jones's debut collection is best described as utterly uncompromising. From his gallery of hard-assed, hard-headed, hard-luck, or simply hard cases, to the way these stories are written and sequenced, Jones demands much of the reader—and more often than not gives much in return. The Pugilist at Rest isn't quite the “knockout” suggested by some of the advance notice, but like the “brain lightning” experienced by several of his epileptic characters, there are flashes here of memorable and auspicious brilliance.

Three stories narrated by Vietnam vets open the collection; indeed, the first seven of the eleven entries are all told in...