This book was just an utter delight to read.

original voice, fantastic writing

On a craft level, these stories are fantastic. Vibrant, visceral, funny and sad and moving sometimes at the same time. But after having read LaValle's more recent work (BIG MACHINE and on), these don't quite... I don't know, they don't fit? I guess? They feel like, to the jacket copy's point, attempts to do what Sherman Alexie and Junot Diaz were doing, machismo and all. But I don't really want that, these days. It's a different world from 1999 and I'm glad to know that LaValle morphed and matur...

good for what it was: not my cup of tea

sooooooo good .

I wish I'd known about the short story collection SLAPBOXING WITH JESUS when I was teaching--I can think of thirty kids who would've loved it. I first learned about #VictorLaValle when I recently read a testimonial he gave for NPR about Kenzaburo Oe's work. In the piece, he made a strong statement about Oe's writing and the ante it ups for other writers that made me want to read LaValle's own work to see if he himself was equal to the task. Here's the statement: "[I]magine if Oe's courageous nak...

I'm a little conflicted. The writing is phenomenal, but the stories themselves aren't really stories, they are character sketches. It's very well done for what it is, but it's really not to my taste. I prefer more plot in my stories.

Days in the life of NY boys in the 80's. From the childhood age of 9 to 18 years old. Friends, the city, toxic masculinity, and just being a kid in the neighbor. An excellent read and a vivid point of view that accurately depicts the time ans place.

Writer of the critically-acclaimed novels, BIG MACHINE and THE CHANGELING, Victor LaValle's first publication, dated 1999, is a literary fiction short-story collection titled, SLAPBOXING WITH JESUS; it is a powerful and moving collection of twelve stories, featuring a diverse cast of youngsters, who are learning how to navigate their chaotic environment and adolescence in 1980s, Queens, N.Y.And whether it is seeking out a crackhead prostitute (story, "class trip") or dreaming about saving the wo...

This edition is signed by author Victor D. LaValle.

I wish this collection was as much on people's minds as the more popular "Jesus's Son" by Denis Johnson. Together, the two paint the perfect picture of contemporary American male life. And this one is much more fun. Rhythm like you wouldn't believe and characters you know but have never read about before.

I liked it. (But not enough to give it a 4) 3.5 out of 5. LaValle's characters were about as real as fictional characters can possibly be. If they were any realer they would be walking around NYC wearing gaudy jewelry and dropping the "Killah" from their MC title.This might just be me being naive but it seemed to me that LaValle went way out of his way to show the dark and ugly side of project living. I mean, WTF? Are you telling me that not all New Yorkers are as nice as Puffy and Rudy Giuliani...

Complicated and emotional characters give you glimpses into their everyday life through sharp dialogue and solid setting. This text is action packed and worthy of flipping back through the pages to connect the dots of all the characters.

A gut-wrenching and quietly powerful selection of stories exploring how poverty, racism, and generational devastation affect black masculinity: punishing emotional openness, prioritizing individual success. The way that LaValle writes is calm, plain; through this, using this, he creates beauty, terrible though such beauty may seem. Several particular stories stand out, and I greatly, GREATLY admire how LaValle tells so much about characters, their histories, and their spheres without constrainin...

Wonderfully written characters, spectacular mental terrain, funny, violent, brooding. All these things are great. But I'm reminded of something Garth Greenwell sometimes brings up about James Baldwin, how it wasn't until Baldwin got older that he seemed able to imagine queer lives with any dignity, at least in his fiction. And I *think* Greenwell went so far as to say that he considered this to be a shortcoming of Baldwin's. That's how I feel about this book, at least in part. This felt almost l...

While not nearly as strong as his novels or his two novellas, LaValle is essential reading and these interconnected tales of life are powerfully rendered. It would be easy to say there is an over-emphasis on the negative, the hyper-masculine, and the stereotypes of black culture. I would reply that there is a realism here, a harsh realism some people might want to ignore. Racism is alive and kicking, as is sexism, and classism. All of these horrors are hyper-realized in Black America. LaValle's

really wanted to love this. ghost story was amazing but a lot of the others left me a little bored.

This collection of short stories was powerful and sometimes upsetting. They seemed in many ways autobiographical and give us snippets (almost but not quite anecdotal in nature) of the lives of boys and men living in Queens. It's a hard life and the ties between the characters seem easily breakable, as if their own and each others lives are cheap. But there's an honesty about the warts and all revelations that gripped me as a reader. I've read three of LaValle's novels and I enjoyed those more th...

Picked this up after reading and loving The Changeling. This is a great collection, but like any, some will speak to you more than others. Some faves/highlighted lines:getting ugly - "When you become an adult you accept what makes you wonderful and, if lucky, what falls short."Trinidad - this was one of my favorites. I think it will break my heart no matter how often I read it. Also loved this, "Orpheus had called it a bitchy bike when we'd first witnessed it, but what he'd meant to say was, I w...

Victor LaValle's early work. In short, his talent is visible through nuances and hints of what's to come in latter novels.Masterful as always!