Cockfighter

By: Charles Willeford

Narrated by: Jim Steele

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

A former professional boxer, actor, horse trainer and radio announcer, Charles Willeford (1919-1988) is best known for his Miami-based crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Hoke Moseley, including Miami Blues and Sideswipe. His career as a writer began in the late 1940s, but it was his 1972 novel Cockfighter that announced his name to a wider audience.

Of that book, Harry Crews said, “Charles Willeford renders the sport with such knowledge and attention to detail that...had the almost inexpressible impression of being on my knees again beside the great fighting pits of the southern circuit.

Frank Mansfield is the titular cockfighter: a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. Mansfield haunts the cockpits, bars and roads of the rural South in the early 1960s, adrift but always capable of nearly anything.

First published in complete form in 1972, and adapted by Willeford for a Monte Hellman film in 1974 (which became infamous for its use of real animals in the fight scenes), the novel Cockfighter has been out of print for nearly 20 years.

©2011 Betsy Willeford (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

A Bloody, Griity, Beautiful Mess.

One of my new favorites.
Narration is perfect for the story.
The protagonist (antagonist?) is a real son of a bitch, with a residual sense of honor.
The story is grisly and glorious in equal measure.
It's very existence is anathema to the modern dogmas of sanitation and safety, and will undoubtedly be decried by the faithful adherents of such decrees should they ever become aware of it. Do yourself a favor, and listen to it while it's still around.

Great Author, Great Story

This was a great story by Charles Willeford, disregard the chicken fights, but focus on the writing. Most of Mr. Willeford's work is top shape and I don't think he has gotten the respect as a writer that he deserves, maybe it is that not that many people have heard of him, but folks give him a try, I think you will be surprised.

A Solid Yes

First off Charles Willeford was a great writer, and in my opinion Cockfighter is one of his best books. I know some people have given it bad reviews, based on the cruel and violence on Cocks, but you have to remember this is a fictional story. I am not a fan of cockfighting, and I have never been to a cockfight, but I am basing my review on the writing which is superb. If you can't handle the chicken violence & cruelty maybe stay away. I learned alot about chickens and cock's especially, these are brave and fierce animals and they will fight to the death or until one cock runs away, and this is a natural instinct in Cocks...Cockfighting goes back hundreds and thousands of years.....Well here is the blurb.

The sport is cockfighting, and Frank Mansfield is the Cockfighter-a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. In this haunting, ribald, and percussively violent work, the author of the Hoke Mosely detective novels yields a floodlit vision of the cockpits and criminal underbelly of the rural South.

I think I paid $7.95 for this audiobook, and I bought the hardcover so I could read along while listening.and it was worth every penny in my eyes and ears.