Do not read unless you can handle some surprising (appears when you are not expecting it) animal cruelty. I think that there is something vital about the animal cruelty and what Willeford is saying about the southern states in the mid-20th century. The scientific thought and effort put into such a mean sport says much about the human animal and Willeford teases these elements out with the skills of a master.

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 you silly cock sucker! 8P!

n  A gamecock is the most stupid creature on earth and, paradoxically, the most intelligent fightern

A master craftsman, who teaches writing as he entertains.

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 Intercepcion---able to survive in the ring against the chanticleer of Kanye West (named Gold Digger, natch)? What are the odds that the fallen-from-grace QB can redeem himself by defeating the prodigious genital proboscis of Santonio Holmes or Greg Oden, just two of the trou-dropping athletes in recent months to go full wang-dang-doodle?

But perhaps most impressive are the strange rituals by which men gild their otherwise tumescent lilies to gain a competitive edge. Who knew that Favre takes a razor-blade to his Sandspur to carve grooves into it to give the appearance it’s more battle-scarred than it really is, thus raising the odds against him? Who knew of how underhandedly bettors themselves will break into the training routines of poor Grady Sizemore—whose name couldn’t be more Dickensian than Dickens’ own in this context—to size up his chances for taking his arch (and decidedly curved) enemy, Little David? It’s this wealth of detail that makes Willeford’s second-best book after The Burnt Orange Heresy so authoritative.

Of course, being pulp, there has to be some stock characters and impotent plotting. The femme fatale in this case is the fetching and onomatopoetically ominous Michelle Metro, who must keep Brett from leaving the business because she sells cockfighting magazines for Amazon.com. She’s hott for sure, but the world of the testicular wattle isn’t for women. The story structure is also delightfully shambolic, a byproduct of the days when you cranked out a novel in thirty days to pay your electricity bill (and to buy some pube straightener). In this case, the hero is one minute a master of his chosen domain name, only to become out of nowhere a talented mother-guitar-plucker in an episodic excursion that seems included only because that’s where the author’s narrative rod led him. There’s also a weird and wholly misplaced subplot about a shady pharmaceutical flim-flam man—probably a veiled Viagra allegory, is my guess. But in the end you forgive these structural flaws because they give the hero dimension and keep him from seeming past his prime after twenty-some seasons in the cocking leagues. In the end, that’s what we love: a beautiful loser who knows he’s no hero. Someone who probably understands a 31-3 castration by his former teammates is a sign from the gods that he’s wilted beyond repair. Willeford was awesome at capturing those type of men; and while sportscasters grouse that we indulge in “SchadenFavre” (please, critics, no more Schadenfreude riffs; retire the fucking word already and wear something else out for a while, like Ted Nugent’s favorite German catchphrase wang-dang-sweet-weltanschauung), I think what we really want is an opportunity to empathize rather than feel superior. Love the fallen; they need the stroking more than those still stiff with hubris.

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 chasing down old debts, running into old girlfriends, running into new girlfriends, and acquiring a new partner all in the space of a few months. You also learn a lot about cockfighting along the way. It's the kind of novel I really like because it's so different. Had such a novel been written today by a flashier writer it would have been soaked in lurid hues of violence. Not so in Willeford's novel.

"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. 416

"Unlike most American sportsmen, the cockfighting fan has an overwhelming tendency to become an active participant. There is no such thing as a passive interest in cockfighting. Beginning as a casual onlooker, a man soon finds the action of two game cocks battling to the death a fascinating spectacle. He either likes it or he doesn't. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't return to watch another fight. If he does like it, he accepts, sooner or later, everything about the sport - the good with the bad.
"As the fan gradually learns to tell one game strain from another, he admires the vain beauty of a game rooster. Admiration leads to the desire to possess one of these beautiful creatures for his very own, and pride of ownership leads to the pitting of his pet against another game cock. Whether he wins or loses, once the fan has got as far as pitting, he is as hooked as a ghetto mainliner." pg.493

"Members of the cockfighting fraternity are from all walks of life. There are men like myself, from good Southern families, sharecroppers, businessmen, loafers on the county relief rolls, Jews, and Holy Rollers. If there is one single thing in the world, more than all the others, preserving the tradition of the sport of cocking for thousands of years, it's the spirit of democracy. In a letter to General Lafayette, George Washington wrote, 'It will be worth coming back to the United States, if only to be present at an election and a cocking main at which is displayed a spirit of anarchy and confusion, which no countryman of yours can understand.' I carried a clipping of this letter, which had been reprinted in a game fowl magazine, in my wallet. I had told Mary Elizabeth [my fiance] once that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton had both been cockfighters during the colonial period, but she had been unimpressed. Nonetheless, cockfighters are still the most democratic group of men in the United States." pg.497

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 of the birds. It was one of the elements that I found engaging in Miami Blues as well-I was able to immerse myself in the southern culture of Miami and Miami Beach-places that I had never set foot in myself. The same can be said of this novel. I was able to inhabit the southern cockfighting tour and share the triumphs and setbacks of the eccentric protagonist Frank Mansfield whose one and only goal in life is to be the cockfighter of the year. This is a similarity between Hoke Mosely (from Miami Blues) and Frank Mansfield they are driven to succeed and be the best they can in their respective professions almost to the exclusion of other aspects of their lives. Willeford is a master of creating believable and unusual characters in his novels and I look forward to inhabiting his world of fiction in future novels as well.

”If a man accepts life logically, the unexpected is actually the expected.”

n  n
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 on only ten-dollars, so he lets her go with the trailer.

Frank, in the midst of his trials and tribulations, is always a practical man. He knows what he can do and what he can’t do. He has kept his fiance waiting for the past eight years because being on the cockfighting circuit keeps him away from home too much to keep a bride happy. He has one goal to obtain. It has been his white whale, his odyssey. He wants to be named Cockfighter of the Year of the Southern Conference Tournament. He’s had his chances. Bad luck and sometimes his own hubris have cost him a chance at the title. In an effort to separate himself from his past mistakes and to free his future for success, Frank takes a vow of silence.

He thinks his punishment is not talking, but in reality, it is the fact that, when people find out he doesn’t talk, they turn him into their confessional. It makes sense, right? Who is Frank going to tell? And what an opportunity to unburden themselves, and boy, do they ever.

Cockfighting is a blood sport, much like bullfighting, and I abhor the use of animals for sport, including hunting. The subject matter of this book kept me from reading it for decades, but I kept reading references to it, comparing it to Homer’s Odyssey, and that it’s considered to be Willeford’s masterpiece. I’ve been on a Willeford reading kick lately, so I finally decided it was time. I understand the references to the Odyssey, but as I read the book, I kept thinking of Ahab putting everything else aside, and risking his life to finally catch his white whale. Frank also puts everything on hold to do everything he can to win the coveted Cockfighter of the Year award.

Willeford does not candy coat cockfighting. The blood will fly, and there is one particularly brutal moment that I will never forget. Willeford, as he always does, puts his readers right in the middle of the action. It is readily evident that Willeford has done his research and certainly has spent some time down in the pits watching or participating. I do believe I learned more about cockfighting from this novel than if I’d read a manuel. ”The right feel of a gamecock is indescribable. Maybe it is an instinct of some kind, but if a man ever gets the right feel of a perfectly conditioned gamecock in his fingers, his fingers never forget.”

n  n
Charles Willeford wrote the screenplay for the 1974 movie based on his book.

What Willeford is exploring in this novel is obsession. He just happens to use cockfighting as his vehicle to root at the truth of an enthusiasm that becomes a neurotic passion. ”It is only incidental that Frank Mansfield is a cockfighter; he is a man with an obsession, and the novel could just as easily have been about an insurance salesman, or an account executive for an advertising firm.”

Frank Mansfield is a fascinating character. A man’s man who accepts setbacks stoically and continues to battle his way back to the moment that the medal he has sought for so long is within his grasp.

What then?

I often think about who Ahab would have been if he had defeated his white whale. Once you’ve achieved a goal like that, what comes next?

Who will Frank be? What will be the first thought on his mind when he wakes up every morning? When people put all their effort into one goal, they tend to eventually be successful. The problem, of course, is all the debris they leave in their wake of family, friends, career, and security. The journey is much more exciting than the actual achievement. So would Frank be more fulfilled by never winning?

That is what good writing is about, leaving us much to ruminant on long after we finish the book.

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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 in both the army and the air force until he left 1956 at age 37. From there he held diverse jobs such as professional boxer, actor, horse trainer, and radio announcer; until finally earning his M.A. in English Literature and teaching at the University of Miami where he was granted an associate professorship.

Charles Willeford began writing novels in the 1950's and gained a reputation as one of the fathers of Miami Crime Novels. This reviewer first discovered his work with the movie Miami Blues with Alec Baldwin and Fred Ward. However, The Cockfighter was where it began and it spawned a movie as well.

To appreciate the story, the reader has to appreciate the quote the author selected to introduce it:
What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it. (Ezra Pound)
Charles Willeford creates both an unlikeable and interesting protagonist in Frank Mansfield. The story is told in the first person, yet the protagonist has taken a vow of silence, creating an involving series of complicated interactions with other characters as the story progresses. Frank Mansfield is flawed with great depth; his flaws are accentuated by the other story characters, as are his virtues.
As a writer, you might ask yourself a basic question. How can I make my main characters in a way that my readers will empathize with them? That is a tough deal when the protagonist is an itinerant cockfighter and gambler, who is introduced by way of handing over his car, mobile home and nubile lover after losing his best rooster in the ring. Indeed, self-involved Frank Mansfield seems to care more for his portable chicken coop than his young lover Dody, who he effectively gives away along with a title slip.

Even in this beginning tawdry scene, the reader is presented with blocks of character traits in Frank Mansfield that Charles Willeford begins to expertly move around. Frank is certainly flawed but there is logic behind his actions and a morality. Many novels don't develop a character as well in their entirety as Frank Mansfield reveals himself in the first ten pages.

Like any good story, the loss begins a journey. Frank is down but has an inner fortitude fueled by his love of cockfighting. The Southern Conference Cockfighting Association is treated like the Vatican and the Olympics rolled into one. Frank isn't just a lowly bum throwing chickens with spurs into a dirt ring to hack themselves to pieces, he is a journeyman on his way to being an expert. The reader is given the gory details of his monkish dedication to his chosen blood sport.

Yet we also see Frank's other sides. A talented guitarist, a product of a well-off rural Southern background, and a fiancée he has left behind but still has hopes for. Frank is an evolving character but he also steadfast in his principles. Throughout the book the reader is rewarded by a man with deep inner motivations, motivations clearly developed from years of living alone. The reader understands Frank and by understanding Frank, the reader begins to sympathize with him.

The action of the story is, of course, cockfighting. Cockfighting is laid out in a way that is both gory and glorious. Charles Willeford teaches the reader about cockfighting through Frank Mansfield and also by the impending battle between the two roosters Icarus and Little David. Frank battles his way to a seat in The Southern Conference Tournament with fortitude and empty pockets. The reader sees Frank laid bare as he calls in all the favors he has left to get there.

Frank isn't beyond taking away the family farm his brother lives on. Frank in many ways is like one of his fighting cocks that has been dropped into a ring. He must win The S.C.T. because in his mind there is nothing left otherwise.

Luckily for the reader, a shortish story about cockfighting isn't really about cockfighting at all.

No tengo ni idea de gallos ni de peleas de gallos, pero esta novela me ha fascinado. Que yo entienda o no de gallos no le ha quitado nada de mérito. De hecho, aborrezco las peleas de gallos y, aún así, ha conseguido que sienta cierto interés. Porque lo que importa no es lo que narra Willeford, sino como lo narra.
Es espectacular como consigue que su personaje principal, que se ha autoimpuesto el voto de silencio, no hable, pero transmita tanto durante cada página.
Sencillamente, genial.
Qué bien trata el mundo de los gallos, con mucha emoción, con cariño, y con conocimientos, y eso que es una temática poco usual.
Qué personaje principal tan bien creado: el mudo (por elección) Frank Mansfield.
Unos personajes secundarios que refuerzan toda la historia.
Ya me gustó mucho "Miami Blues" y esta novela es incluso mejor.
Un escritor brillante.

I have no idea of roosters or cockfights, but this novel has fascinated me. Whether I understand or not about roosters has not taken away anything of merit. In fact, I abhor cockfighting and yet he has got me some interest. Because what matters is not what Willeford narrates, but how he narrates it.
It is spectacular how he manages to get his main character, who has self-imposed the vow of silence, not to speak, but to transmit so much during each page.
Simply, brilliant.
How well the world of roosters treats, with a lot of emotion, with affection, and with knowledge, and that is an unusual topic.
What a well-crafted main character: the mute (by choice) Frank Mansfield.
Secondary characters that reinforce the whole story.
I already liked "Miami blues "a lot and this novel is even better.
A brilliant writer.

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 which he holds it.” There’s plenty of depth in evidence here as protagonist Frank takes the reader into the life of a serious cockfighter.

Frank is such a passionate man that he’s vowed, unbeknownst to anyone else, to remain silent until he gains the coveted mark of respect that is the silver medal that marks someone out as the cock handler of the year (sniggers really don’t fit on this occasion!). He explains himself a little here:

‘No one, other than myself, knew about my vow, and I could have broken it at any time without losing face. But I would know, and I had to shave every day.”

That last phrase is the kind of poetic turn that give the story an extra edge – Willeford allows his character to tell his tale without relying on the mundane.

When we meet Frank, he’s on the cusp of losing everything – his money, his last fighting bird, his car and his trailer home – on one fight with an old adversary. It’s a hugely dramatic opening and, at risk of spoiling that drama (look away now) it ends up with Frank leaving the pit with only $10, a coop, a few clothes and a guitar.

Given a lift by an old friend who has been forced to retire, he’s offered the chance to buy the perfect bird, Icarus, for the hugely inflated sum of $500. Frank has a choice – to promise to buy the bird or to give up the game and return home to marry his patient, conservative fiancée. Frank’s passion means there’s only one option and he sets off to find the money he needs.

What follows is the engrossing sequence of events that will lead up to Frank having the chance to make his personal dream come true.

Cockfighter reads like a novel from the depression era, but is set in the 1960s. In some ways, it points to the hangover of values that are old-fashioned in ways that might be seen as good and bad. Frank has his own mixture of values, and his own liberal(ish) views are often contradicted by his animal self or by society. Race and gender are particular areas of interest here.

He holds strong opinions on the nature of work and the illusions created by a capitalist society. When looking for a job, he comments:

‘The majority of the situations that were open in the agate columns were for salesmen. And a man who can’t talk can’t sell anything.’

Or on bigger dreams:

‘I liked the man for what he was and respected him for what he was trying to be. But unlike me, Doc lived with a dream that was practically unattainable. All I wanted to be was the best cockfighter who had ever lived. Doc, who had already reached his late fifties, wanted to be a big time capitalist and financier.’

The series of adventures in the book are brilliantly told. There’s a wonderful use of dramatic tension which left me hungry to find out what would happen next. When the final full stop was reached, my appetite was entirely satisfied.

Here’s a book the likes of which I wish I could write myself. Given the talent on show and my own limitations that’s very unlikely, but just like Frank I don’t see the harm in setting such a high goal. Maybe I should take a vow of silence; if nothing else I suspect my wife and colleagues would be happier that way.

Tremendous.