This is my second Charles Willeford novel and he’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. This story of obsession reminded me of a backwoods Uncut Gems. And it’s got one of the best narrators out there.

I loved this novel because it made me see how ugly it is to participate in this world trying to fulfill some idea of being a man.

"Cockfighter" taught me more about cock fighting* than I ever wanted to know. That said, it should be pointed out that I never wanted to know anything about cock fighting and, instead, I read this book because all of the books I've read from publisher Vintage Crime brand have been well-written and rewarding. Somewhere along the way, Willeford was able to make the world of cock fighting in Florida in the 1960s interesting enough to continue turning the pages until a very satisfying ending.

"Cockfighter" features Frank Mansfield, a down-on-his-luck cock trainer vows to remain silent until he wins a coveted national tournament. His journey through the southeast includes a series of interactions with some unusual characters, horny women, and high-stake tournaments that are described in great detail. Mansfield is a quirky, sad man with ambition, talent and a dream, but he's also a hero readers will root for. Willeford has fully fleshed out Mansfield to the point where the novel is as much a character study as a tense thriller. And, yet, I wanted to know what would happen next.

Fans of pulp fiction will certainly appreciate "Cockfighter". Those withe more modern tastes may find it slow, but I rather enjoyed it.


* When chickens fight each other to the death, with high stakes dollars involved.

Kind of, super misogynistic, but I think that’s the point? A mute protagonist who’s actions are almost entirely propelled by cockfighting, and fighting cocks (ayyyyy...) This book would have been even stronger if it weren’t for the chapters-long quest for money.

Charles Willeford is such an idiosyncratic writer - he wrote his books with protagonists from all the different walks of life (and he didn’t shy away from writing about assholes), but the knowledge he has of each of the subjects he writes about and, in this case, cockfighting, is what makes the writing come to life.

This time he chose Frank Mansfield as a hero, a man who needs to become the Cockfighter of the Year more than he can control it. Also, a hero who doesn’t speak because of a vow made and known solely to himself. This much said, it’s clear that it is certainly a story from another time and another place.

However, there’s one thing about Willeford’s novels that I realized while reading The Cockfighter. The premise might seem simple - a hero going after his goal, but Willeford’s not your average writer. He knows that’s not enough.

He’s aware that why is the most important - and it’s because cockfighting is the last sport in America where a fight can’t be fixed, because a cock - one of the most stupid if not the most stupid animals on planet Earth - will fight until it’s dead, and where a man still has the fairest chances on his bet.

Instead of just an illegal savagery showdown, a cockfighting pit becomes a strange place for a kind of justice. And it’s certainly the talent in the writing that makes you start seeing why some people might find this savagery beautiful - because you start seeing it through Frank Mansfield’s eyes.

Because Willeford didn’t have to spend time on dialogues and they only go that far anyway, he ended up delving deeper into Frank Mansfield’s logic and what stuff made this kind of a hero. And the hero’s silence brought many confessions out of the rest of the colourful characters as well.

An eye for the details and the old-fashioned art of telling a good yarn pours from every line. And what I love the most about Willeford is that he can describe his characters in very short, but very true sentences. Like: Bernice (who’s been a widow for five years) sometimes goes to the bathroom in her big apartment and just for once she’d like to see the toilet seat up instead of down.

What a stubborn, tough and gritty character Frank Mansfield is - but still very easy to like, because he has heart. Willeford certainly wasn’t the kind to worry if his characters were likable. And like many of Willeford’s characters, even if this cockfighter might not hold certain civilizational values very dear, he certainly has a strict code to which he adheres. I rooted for him all the way.

P. S. Maybe except that one time Frank set his fighting cock on fire just to test if the cock’s line had good enough blood with grit to still continue fighting against all odds.

Willeford gets major points for diving into the gritty world of cockfighting and stretching his atmospheric command into the South, but the story and characters aren't nearly as vivid as his other books. I think PICK-UP and MIAMI BLUES are better and bolder books. Willeford's trademark dark humor is largely in absentia here and I think that would have anchored this novel more.

Never a slog but ultimately too didactic for me. It's a book about masculine obsession more than it is about cockfighting itself, but Charles Willeford apparently immersed himself in cockfighting circles to study for writing this and it shows. A majority of the book is knee-deep in the minutia of the sport, talking about how the roosters are conditioned and trained, what the different rules of the sport are, different techniques the handlers use during fights, and last but not least the brutality of it all (which is depicted with complete neutrality, and it's clear that Willeford thought of it as a rough but noble sport rather than animal abuse). Parts of it are truly and deeply repulsive, and it's supposed to shock, but I was more bothered by how... technical it all is, I guess? The main character is a stoic on a vow of silence until he wins the cockfighting championship, but the book itself feels as drained of emotion as he is, and I see the passion but want more FEELINGS! Maybe that's what I get for reading a book described in the intro as one of the most macho of all-time.

Regrettably, I will not be reading this. I was hoping the title was not literal, or at least that there would be less animal abuse..

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, Frank Mansfield, has taken a vow of silence until he wins the Southern Conference cockfighting champion title. ‘To a cocker’, we are informed, ‘this medal means as much as the Nobel Prize does to a scientist.’ Frank has left his long-suffering fiancée and will only return with the medal.
Willeford, who liked literary epigraphs, attached to Cockfighter Ezra Pound’s ‘What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it’. Frank Mansfield’s idea is held very deep. The narrative opens with him down on his luck. His last rooster Sandspur (‘a Whitehackle cross in peak condition’) has been eviscerated in a contest with the mighty Little David. Frank, who wagered all he had, loses his Cadillac, his trailer, and the sixteen-year-old bedwarmer he’s shacked up with. He feels no remorse about the last (‘She was pretty, young and a good lay. She could get by anywhere’). When she dares to complain he confirms his adieu with a sharp punch to the belly. The Cadillac, by contrast, he misses sorely: ‘All I had left was a folded ten dollar bill in my watch pocket and one dead chicken.’ He hustles his way back into enough money to be a player again with his prize bird Icky (the true name, ‘Icarus’, he keeps to himself).
Cockfighting is presented as something archetypally manly (only male birds fight) and quintessentially American. ‘As every cocker knows’, Frank tells us, ‘honest Abe Lincoln was once a cockpit referee’. George Washington was a fan. Cockfighting is illegal in the US, although it is still very popular, particularly in the south. Ten years into the twenty-first century, the state of Georgia was vainly attempting to ‘block loopholes’ in its anti-cockfighting legislation, and failing. The cockpit incarnates the American frontier spirit as symbolically as did the corrida for Hemingway. Cockfighting, Frank believes, is the only sport left that can’t be fixed. The novel has plenty of flying claws and feathers, but lacks plot. There is casual sex, sharp-dealing, and lots of blood (not all of it chicken blood). Frank takes on a Polish partner, Omar Baradinsky. He finally wins his ‘goddamned medal’, finds his voice again, and loses his fiancée, who tells him that cockers are not, after all, her cup of tea. A pneumatic divorcée takes her place. They go off to celebrate his victory in Puerto Rico.

Obra maestra.

A strange book. It feels almost like a parody of the type of macho writing you see in Hemingway’s A Death in the Afternoon, but it’s so well researched and carefully put together that it can’t be a real parody. There is a clear wink and nod with the characterization of the silent and bold narrator who is solely focused on becoming the best cockfighter in the south. Also, it is my belief that Willeford intended to use COCKfighting as the central focus of this narrative knowing full well the phallic undertones. There is always a lot of casual racism and misogyny in CW’s books but it is always in the voice of the character. With every book I read of his I am further convinced of his tendency to subvert genre tropes and expose the American male as the sick character he truly is. I’m sure this has to do with his experiences as a soldier in WWII.

His books are always clearly and soberly written, dry, deadpan, surprising, and funny without being hacky. I can understand how someone would misinterpret the way he voices his characters as being the voice of the writer. But I’d encourage the suspicious reader to push on and try another one of his works. I know way more about cockfighting than I ever expected to now, and this book further convinced me that CW was a truly special talent.

This was really surprising. The world and characters Willeford creates is engrossing. It's hard to recommend due to the subject matter but I hope give it a try regardless.