TC Boyle’s fiction is satiric, surreal, comic, and dark. His first book, Descent of Man, published in 1979, is an eclectic collection of short stories that incorporate elements of popular culture, anthropology, and psychology. Several stories in this collection start as parodies of pop culture narrative tropes borrowed from Hollywood. “The Champ,” for example, borrows its plot from a common Hollywood trope: the prizefighter story. In it, an aging champion is struggling to hang on to his title while facing an up and coming challenger. Instead of boxing, however, the sport is competitive eating. Boyle successfully mimics the style of these stories in what is both a satire and an homage. The Champ himself is identified as “Angelo D.” an obvious reference to Angelo Dundee, Muhammed Ali’s longtime trainer. In the story, Angelo D’s trainer is a gruff crusty taskmaster with a heart of gold that every prizefighter must have. While the premise is absurd, the story lives in a reality that has been created by Hollywood with which the reader is entirely familiar (Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight, Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky). The story begins the way most of these stories begin:
Angelo D. was training hard. This challenger, Kid Gullet, would be no pushover. In fact, the Kid hit him right where he lived: he was worried. He’d been champ for thirty-seven years and all that time his records had stood up like Mount Rushmore—and now this Kid was eating him up.
This brings us to September 7th. As nobody knew exactly where the rebels were, we really expected a big fight right here, and were in line awaiting it. General Gorman rides along the line, and tells his men they have got to fight ; but the real hard fight is ten days off. At Tenallytown the men received their knapsacks, which had been shipped from Harrison s Landing. Major Beverly, who had been absent for some time, was now with the regiment again, and in command, for Colonel Suiter was on the sick list. This heavy marching, continued for so many days, was about as bad as a battle, judging by the way it worsted the men. Forward we go, up through Maryland ; on the 10th near Clarksburg; on the 11th to Hyattstown. Here a small body of rebel cavalry was dispersed by Kirby s Battery. On the 12th we were at Urbana, and on the 13th at Frederick City; thence to South Mountain where we came in contact with the enemy, but suffered no loss. A fine thing happened at Middletown on the 14th, the day of the South Mountain fight. The men had been marching all day, and were badly whipped, although they had not been in a fight. Toward evening we halted on a beautiful farm. The country around Middletown is very much like western New York: open, with rolling hills and meadows. We expected to remain here for the night; and no sooner had we stacked arms than nine-tenths of the men made a dash for a cornfield a mile away. Green corn in those days was a great luxury; but we had barely reached the field, and began to pluck the ripened ears, when the bugle sounded to fall in, and we had to make a lively return dash. This extra effort, coming on top of the heavy day s march, didn’t rest the men very much ; but we fell in, and never halted again until midnight. We were then on South Mountain, and very softly crept up to a stone wall, believing that the rebels were just on the other side. Not a man was allowed to speak, or hardly breathe. The morning broke, but the rebels were not on the other side of the wall, nor anywhere in sight.
