In this widely acclaimed literary debut, Benjamin Cavell stalks the male ego, unleashing a ferocious volley of nine sharply written and deeply penetrating stories.

In Balls, Balls, Balls, we are introduced to Logan Bryant, the star member of the “fourth best paintball team in the tristate area.” Despite his knowledge of napalm recipes and his skill during Military Simulations—MilSim, for short—Logan’s armor shows fractures with every move he makes. In The Death of Cool, an insurance adjuster has come to realize much too clearly the range of threats that surround him. “Tired of trusting in the other guy’s morality,” he embraces his paranoia and leaves as little to chance as possible. The Ropes opens in a hospital room after Alex Folsom has sustained a devastating concussion. With both college and his boxing career behind him, he reunites with his father on Martha’s Vineyard to assess the damage--both physical and emotional. Rumble, Young Man, Rumble is a ground-shaking announcement of the next heavy hitter in American letters.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

“Benjamin Cavell comes on like gangbusters with a set of tightly coiled stories. . . . [An] expert collection.” —The New York Times

“Bad boys abound in this knockout collection of short stories. . . . [Cavell] writes with the assurance, the intelligence, and the ownership of his craft of an author who’s been winning laurels all his life.” —The Boston Globe

“Razor-sharp. . . . Engaging, funny and heartfelt, Rumble, Young Man, Rumble is a provocative take on the new generation.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Astonishing . . . rude, manic, calculating, over-the-top, often hilarious and utterly surreal.” —Los Angeles Times

“Headlong prose is the engine that drives Cavell’s work, pulling the reader along after it [with a] lunatic sensibility and zany grace.” –The Washington Post Book World

"Cavell . . . has a beautiful sense of rhythm. His sentences are staccato short, and as toned as a fighter two minutes before ringside." –Chicago Tribune

"This is minimalist prose reinvigorated. . . . Cavell finally shows us not just how men hit each other, but why." –The New York Times Book Review

“Rumble, Young Man, Rumble had me up until the wee hours. This book is dynamite, pure TNT! Cavell’s take on the American musclehead culture is perfect, and he writes about it with hilarious irony, mercifully unfettered by the bounds of political correctness. A great new voice in American literature.” –Thom Jones

“This debut collection of stories is the literary equivalent of a right hook. It’s devastatingly good. . . . Reading Rumble, Young Man, Rumble is like going 12 rounds with a prizefighter. You’re battered and bruised by the time it’s over, but you’ve never felt more alive.” –Rocky Mountain News

"A CAT scan of the male psyche. . . . The tight-lipped realism of Cavell's dialogue approaches stoic poetry." –The Columbus Dispatch

“Neil LaBute couldn’t have written a colder, funnier or more brutal collection of stories about what it means to be a man than this debut by Benjamin Cavell. . . . The spare description, the tight dialogue and the crude jokes all work here. Even when [his] characters are overtly frightening, their insecurities insure their complexity.” –The Nation

“Benjamin Cavell’s stories are air-tight meditations on American masculinity: both celebration and critique, sometimes manic, always precise.  Like early Thom Jones; a great find.” –Richard Price

“'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' is both the epigraph to Cavell's violent debut . . . and a fair summation of how each tale operates. . . . Cavell’s writing is lean and mean, stripped down to make his cast of imploding alpha males all the more naked and frightening.” –Entertainment Weekly

“A forceful debut collection. . . . From a paranoid, obsessive-compulsive insurance claims adjuster . . . to a rookie congressman running for reelection, Cavell’s characters exemplify various species and dilemmas of American manhood, [and are] funny, pitiful and chilling at the same time. Think George Saunders and Matthew Klam.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Armed with clean, simple prose . . . [Cavell's] straightforward tales course with the haunting hum of men fated to sublimation and the anger it breeds." –The Onion

“The theme of masculinity and its discontents is the organizing principle of this terrific debut collection of nine tough-as-nails stories by a former collegiate boxer. This Rumble is a spectacle not to be missed. You’ll want a ringside seat.” –Kirkus (starred review)

“Rumble, Young Man, Rumble is the work of a writer of extraordinary talent. Bristling with intensity, these stories are filled with insight into human frailty, motivation and possibility. Cavell [is] a skilled and serious fiction writer with a very bright future.” –January Magazine

“So good I almost passed out; I knew I was in the hands of a major artist. Cavell’s men are comic masterpieces of our times. They’re funny when they’re dumb, and brilliant when they’re funny. You’ll read these stories and hear them resonate like the best unbridled young male roar.” –Matthew Klam


From the Trade Paperback edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

Benjamin Cavell attended Harvard College, where he was a boxer and an editor for The Harvard Crimson. Rumble, Young Man, Rumble is his first book.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page