‘Thrown’: MFA grad writes about MMA training

Kerry Howley's 'Thrown” (Sarabande Books, 282 pages, $15.95) is a non-fiction book with a fictional narrator.

The book details the mixed martial arts exploits of Sean Huffman of Davenport and Eric Koch of Cedar Rapids. Howley, who holds an MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, recounts the extreme training and deprivations that underpin a fighting career. She also takes us inside the octagon with harrowingly beautiful and dynamic descriptions of the fights themselves.

To do this, she created Kit, a woman who serves as a 'spacetaker” for both fighters, hanging around them day and night as they prepare (or avoid preparing) for their next contest. Kit, in an interesting narrative move, is 'aware” of her own unreality:

'In regards to the present narration, I feel compelled to defend myself against a certain sort of prejudice endemic to our times. ‘You,' my gentle detractors will say, ‘who purport to tell the stories of these real men, are but a work of fiction.' This I do not deny: I stand before you every bit as fictional as longitude and latitude, as the Roman calendar, as the sixty-second minute, and I encourage you to dispose with all of these to the extent that they offend you.”

Kit, framing her project as philosophical inquiry, is seeking moments of transcendence. She experiences such moments when she watches her fighters do battle, and she is willing to sacrifice much to chase that release. Howley allows Kit to tell us quite a bit about herself, detailing parts of her childhood as well as her battles with her academic program, creating a detailed fictional narrative interwoven with her true tale.

'Thrown” is a powerful, if sometimes puzzling experience.

Reading

What: Mission Creek Festival: Kerry Howley

Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

When: 6 p.m. April 2l

Cost: Free