Thom Jones's first collection of short stories, The Pugilist at Rest, was published in 1993 and brought almost instant critical attention to its author. While many critics admired Jones's talent and praised his short fiction, there was an overall sense of uncertainty about how best to measure the author's unusual imagery, scenes, and inchoate ideas. Part of this confusion lay in Jones's background. The Thom Jones who became well known overnight was drawn variously as a former Marine, a beclouded former boxer, an occasional janitor, and ad writer, who stumbled into writing while on various drugs and after reading too much Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer on his breaks. Some reviewers simply seemed unwilling to take a forty-eight-year-old janitor seriously. Publishers' blurbs and newspaper book reviews were many times ambiguous and mixed biographical misinformation with unfounded suppositions. Since the publication of two more collections, Cold Snap in 1995 and Sonny...