”If a man accepts life logically, the unexpected is actually the expected.” Willeford played a part in the 1974 movie.Frank Mansfield makes an ill advised bet that will leave him in dire straits. ”All I had left was a folded ten-dollar bill in my watch pocket and one dead chicken.” He bets everything, including his truck and trailer, on one cockfight and loses. He has a girlfriend, of sorts, named Dody. ”She was as strong as a tractor, but not quite as intelligent.” He can’t afford her upkeep...

I have absolutely no idea how this book and its movie came back to the surface of my mind. I watched the film in 1975, I think, and I'm sure it was with Paul the film student. (He was also a drunk, and to date the only lover I've ever had that I allowed to hit me.)Come to think on it, he's also the source of one of my most enduring pleasures, that of watching films whose books I've read or plan to read, and of making fantasy films of the books I read that haven't got films. Thanks, Paul, for gro...

*3.5 Stars*The interesting thing about this book is that it is essentially the classic underdog sports story that is popular in a lot of movies, television, and books, but instead of focusing on a football player or boxer, it's about a man who trains chickens to fight to the death. It's told from the point of view of Frank Mansfield, a respected cockfighter who, at the books opening, loses all of his money, his car, his mobile home, and his ace cock Sandspur after being defeated by his rival. No...

Charles Willeford's villains are tough, self-assured and manly men who are convinced about their own uniqueness. They also have a sneering contempt for ordinary life and people who in their opinion are ordinary. Here is Frederick.J Fenger, Jr reacting to his newly acquired girlfriend's ambition to buy a Burger King franchise in Miami Blues - "I can't see any point to hanging around a Burger King all day, no matter how much money you make. .... I'll tell you why. Your life would depend on the ran...

This is hands down the best Brett Favre biography ever. I was impressed by Charles Willeford's ability twenty-two years after his death to explore the competitive milieu of peen-pic texting. There is a whole subculture surrounding this primeval sport in which grown men digitize their dangle not merely to woo the female of the species but to compete against each other in those bloody, bread-and-circuses arenas known as celebrity-dong blogs. Is Favre's prize cock---with its saintly Mexican name In...

I wouldn't know how to classify this novel if anyone asked me to. I don't think I could even summarize it in a way that would encourage others to read it. There isn't much of a plot as there is an episodic account of a top tier cockfighter's journey in and around Florida in the early 70's in his pursuit to qualify for a huge cockfighting tournament where he hopes to win the Cockfighter of the Year award. You get to ride along as our hero deals with losing everything in the opening chapters, to c...

Fascinating and unique, pure Willeford, with a hint of Jim Thompson about things. How often can you tell people that you are reading a first person narrative of a voluntarily mute cockfighter? It's incredibly well written, and never what I anticipated. Frank Mansfield is an arsehole, one hundred percent, almost Reacher-esque in his sad white man wish fulfilment nature, always right, always better than anyone else he comes in contact with, and complete with Sam Allardyce levels of hubris that I f...

The Moby Dick of noir crime novels.

Books like Cockfighter remind me of how I came to love literature in the first place. It offers a wonderful sense of being transported to an entirely different place, seeing the world through the eyes of others and then ensuring that I’m so captivated by a series of events that all I want to do in life at a given moment (well, most given moments) is return to the next page.The quote at the beginning of the book is from Ezra Pound – “What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at whic...

On pure technique, writing style and ability to portray a culture, this book should get five stars. But while the shop talk about cockfighting is amazingly detailed and impressive, I could give a rat's ass about cockfighting. I never would have read a book with that much shop talk about anything, though admittedly I loved Gun Work by David J. Schow, so I guess I'm a hypocrite. I also find it kind of hard to take the violence involving animals. Last but far from least, this is not a noir or a cri...

This sounds very Michael Vick-ish but, this book seems like a "how-to" ghost written by someone I knew. For reasons I cannot disclose here, I will not comment further for fear of being ironically tarred and feathered, and pelted by chicken feed. Thanks for the recommend Mike (view spoiler)[you silly cock sucker! 8P (hide spoiler)]!

When this was first published in 1962 the ancient blood sport of cockfighting was on its last legs in the US, only still legal in Louisiana and New Mexico. Yet Willeford’s novel has gained admiration and a cult status by far more than just the aficionados of the sport, and that is his huge achievement. Another, is that it has aged so well. Frank Mansfield is a smart guy in his early thirties whose one great passion is cockfighting. It takes place in Florida and Georgia, where a couple of years p...

If I hadn't gleefully abandoned all scholarly pursuits some years ago, I'd be pretty tempted to become the preeminent Willeford scholar. My all time favorite literary pattern is the hero's journey (up top, Joseph C) and Cockfighter is more-or-less Willeford's spin on The Odyssey. And I don't think he was necessarily being shy about it. I mean, come on, there's a chicken named Icarus. (Also, there's a chicken called Little David that I'm preeeeeeeeetty sure was the inspiration for Little Jerry.)

I read this on the recommendation of Dwight Garner and was expecting a serious deconstruction of masculinity, the allure of violence, the primal joy of bloodlust, and the "a rolling stone carries no moss" nomadic lifestyle of the devoted but was instead treated to a pretty standard version of the Hero's Quest. To my surprise, I actually preferred the book that I got. Frank Mansfield is a compelling main character and his muteness was an authorial stroke of genius. It kept him somehow unknowable

Meet Frank Mansfield selectively mute war veteran and a Cockfighter. Reason of his muteness is the vow that he made with himself to stay mute until he would win the prize of "Best Cockfighter of Year".I came across this novel when I was searching for a specific documentary about cockfighting in Asian countries. I found it compellingly readable and it reminded into my to-read list for more than a year.I think this novel would be more enjoyable if reader has a slight knowledge about cockfighting b...

The Cockfighter, obviously, is about a man who trains chickens for fights that often end in death of one or both animals, thus, it is not for everyone. It is a subculture I knew very little about, but thanks to this novel, I now know a lot about after following the exploits of the protagonist Frank Mansfield. In fact, it could be said to be the "Moby Dick" of cockfighting novels in that there are several sections that discuss the intricacies of the cockfighting trade as well as the conditioning

Fast, sure, with Ocala dirt under its cracked, yellowed fingernails ... whatever you think of the milieu, it feels "lived-in," with vivid, genuine, expertly drawn characters.

#19 from willeford for me. update, finished, 12 sep 13, thursday evening, 10:17 p.m.so i'm reading along, right, enjoying the story, considering my response here...my take. and willeford hits you right between the eyes. if you are one of those who are so focking tired of the fashionable ideology, willeford hits you right square between the eyes right at the end of this, and bang! this is a favorite. if you are so focking tired of the fashionable focking elite dictating to you this that the other...

Nobody writes like Mr. Willeford.

"As far back as 320 B.C. an old poet named Chanakya wrote that a man can learn four things from a cock: To fight, to get up early, to eat with his family, and to protect his spouse when she gets into trouble. I had learned how to fight and how to get up early, but I had never gotten along too well with my family and I didn't have any spouse to protect. Fighting was all very well, but getting up early was not the most desirable habit to have when living in a big city like Jacksonville [FL]." pg.

Saw this on the "Approval Matrix" on the back page of the May 30th New York magazine that some left at a party at my house. It seems to promise a Nathanial West like ride and I am looking forward to it.****Well it wasn't Nathanial West and not quite Jim Thompson. Willeford does a great job at exposing the intricacies of raising and fighting gamecocks. The protagonist, Frank Mansfield, is the sort of male lead that we can expect from this sort of book. He is self made, self confident, without muc...

I started reading "Maldoror," originally, by the Comte de Lautreaumont, and threw it aside because fifty pages in, I'm pretty sure it's schlock crap. I should've known, picking up a book that an awful, awful, AWFUL write like William Vollmann considers his favorite. But it had a good blurb on the back from some great French writer whose name I don't remember, saying "this book excites me."Well, that book really didn't excite me. But this one sure did. I can't describe this book very well, except...

Silent Frank Mansfield is a really bad guy who is sure he's a good guy for most of the book, but maybe figures out in the end and accepts, what he really is -- which as stated, is a really bad guy. Willeford doesn't pull any punches so you'd better not have a soft spot for roosters (or women) if you pick up this book. I think I read a review of this that called it the Moby Dick of cockfighting. That's a pretty good description. A lot of technical though one has to say practically useless informa...

WORLD'S WORST SPORTS NOVEL!It's about a guy who wants something badly and can only imagine getting it if he does things his own way, all the way. What he does is give up speaking until he wins the Colonel Sanders chicken boxing award. Given that premise, it should have been a better read.The specific facts of cockfighting are spread thin. The female characters are either housebound or attached to a man at the hipThe sentence structure is annoyingly basic. I liked this author's Hoke novels, but I...

I skipped this years ago when I was reading Willeford, assuming it was just going to be some brutal "and here's the shitty world of cockfighting" kinda book. Which it is, but only incidentally, really; it's much more like Charles Portis-- a breezy and fun southern adventure, populated with quirky characters, and told with wit and an eye to the sparkling sentence. It's a book to chuckle through-- though I wouldn't want to watch the movie. Anyway, I'm back on the Willeford again.

A master craftsman, who teaches writing as he entertains.

He's a cockfighter. Sometimes he plays the guitar.

If you are the sort of person who is put off by the idea of cockfighting (we are discussing the Phasianidae kind), most people would not fault you.To write a story about cockfighting is a dance on a high-wire.Charles Willeford was that kind of high-wire act. The product of a hard luck beginning in Arkansas, he hoboed his way through his seventeenth year by freight train along the Mexican border. Served in WW2, earning a Silver Star, Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Continued to serve, enlisting i...

Cockfighter was first published as a ‘paperback original’ (i.e. ‘drugstore novel’) in 1962. The publisher went bust and the whole print run was pulped (‘pulp thou art, and shalt to pulp return’). The novel was republished in 1972, to coincide with the film rights being taken up. The ensuing film is regarded as an all-time turkey. Willeford went on to achieve fame with his Hoke Moseley novels – now regarded as classics of Miami noir. He himself regarded Cockfighter as his legacy book. Its hero, F...

“Cockfighter” by Charles Willeford is a great novel chronicling a time when cockfighting was a major sport in Florida and other states and countries. Frank Mansfield is pursuing the Cockfighter of the Year Award, and portrays a life and life-style long gone in which common, even admirable, behaviors are now totally unacceptable. Frank, for example, begins his story in the company of his 16 year old bed mate (he is 32) as he travels with his birds, gambling and fighting. Frank has taken a vow of