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    <user id="281393">
    <name><![CDATA[Jim]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Glasgow, The United Kingdom]]></location>        
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  <id type="integer">6516352</id>
  <isbn>1906548072</isbn>
  <isbn13>9781906548070</isbn13>
  <ratings_count type="integer">1</ratings_count>
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  <title>Fists</title>
  <average_rating></average_rating>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6516352-fists</link>
<author>
  <id type="integer">2892276</id>
  <name>Pietro Grossi</name>
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    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Anyone who appreciates stories about male bonding]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[The publisher]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Mon Aug 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Sep 19 02:33:24 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Sep 19 02:36:49 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count>1</read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Each of the three stories involves two males. In 'Boxing' it is two very different young fighters, in 'Horses' it is two very different brothers and in 'The Monkey' it is two different friends (they don't get a 'very'). The unifying theme is a universal one, growing up. Stylistically, rather than being compared to European writers, it is Americans, like Hemingway, Faulkner and Salinger, whose names crop up although it has to be conceded that Grossi has now taken his place in a long line of Tuscan novella writers dating back to the sixteenth-century. I can see the Hemingway connection especially in the first two stories (which reek less of testosterone that you might imagine), Salinger is stretching it a bit for me but he did write the quintessential coming-of-age novel so I won't squabble over that but I don't see Faulkner's influence here at all, although he is listed as one of the writers Grossi is passionate about, so I expect there will be some of him in there somewhere.<br/><br/>You can read a detailed review on my blog <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/2009/08/fists.html">here</a>.<br/>]]></body>
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