Table of Contents

Acknowledgments    
Pushing the Knives    
One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist    
Sawdust and Glue    
Can Picking    
Everything a Snake Needs    
The Fire Chasers    
Subdivision Accidents    
Ice-Cream Dream    
We Ride Back    
The Shepherd’s Work    
Conch Tongue    
One More for You    
Strong as Paper Men    
Building Walls    
Workmen’s Compensation    
Touching in Texas    

About the Author

Dustin M. Hoffman painted houses in Michigan for ten years and is now an assistant professor of English at Winthrop University in South Carolina. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, including Threepenny Review, Black Warrior Review, Puerto del Sol, Midwestern Gothic, and Cimarron Review, and his story “Building Walls” received a Pushcart Prize special mention.
 
 

Reviews

"The joy found on the page makes for a thoroughly memorable read."—Publishers Weekly

"One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist is one of those reads that makes you want to scream about it from the rooftops immediately upon finishing."—Malcolm Avenue Review

"This set of 16 stories takes the reader on a compelling trip through the pressure-cooker world of the blue-collar worker."—Shelf Awareness

“Who would have thought that stories about work could contain such magic, such music, such imaginative universality, so many desperadoes who cling to their jobs as madly as winos to their bottles? Dustin M. Hoffman has made a dazzling debut.”—Jaimy Gordon, author of the National Book Award–winning Lord of Misrule
 

“Heartfelt and humorous and always keen to the ways our working lives serve to reveal our more personal hopes and dreams. I won’t soon forget these stories, which thrilled and moved me page after page.”—Matt Bell, author of Scrapper 
 

“Utterly unique and so very important.”—Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff