Fight Song

When his bicycle is intentionally run off the road by a neighbor's SUV, something snaps in Bob Coffin. Modern suburban life has been getting him down and this is the last straw. To avoid following in his own father’s missteps, Bob is suddenly desperate to reconnect with his wife and his distant, distracted children. And he's looking for any guidance he can get.Bob Coffin soon learns that the wisest words come from the most unexpected places, from characters that are always more than what they appear to be: a magician/marriage counselor, a fast-food drive-thru attendant/phone-sex operator, and a janitor/guitarist of a French KISS cover band. Can these disparate voices inspire Bob to fight for his family? To fight for his place in the world?A call-to-arms for those who have ever felt beaten down by life, Fight Song is a quest for happiness in a world in which we are increasingly losing control. It is the exciting new novel by one of the most surprising and original writers of his generation.ReviewPraise for Fight Song“…a Generation X call-to-arms about facing mid-life on our own terms with the unique heart that beats inside us all…Poignant, honest, and funny as hell. As diverse and unpredictable as Generation X itself, Fight Song captures the symbolism in the world we face while giving us permission to laugh at ourselves and the choices we've made in the process.” —Huffington Post“For its irreverent beat, relentless energy, and sharp, funny characters, Fight Song may as well be titled Battle Cry.” —The Rumpus“It’s hard to believe a suburban father’s desperate quest to turn his life around could be so much fun, but that’s exactly how readers are likely to react to Fight Song... a brisk, contemporary Odyssey with Cyclops and the sirens replaced by a cast of characters including a crying magician, who doubles as a marriage counselor and a bodybuilding fast-food worker who moonlights as a phone-sex operator. Mohr…brings a dollop of David Sedaris–like humor to the pathos. While irreverent, he gets to the heart of real emotion with bracing frankness…It’s a surprisingly sweet, rollicking tribute to anyone who’s ever needed a fight song to fight back.” —Booklist“An unusual take on a mid-life crisis narrative, Mohr's novel… offers unexpected—often brilliant—confrontations of modern clichés…Mohr's elegant writing and colorful milieu is refreshing, an interesting mix of Charles Bukowski and Tom Robbins, with a cinematic heaping of the Coen brothers for good measure.” —Publishers Weekly“Mohr has a clever imagination, and this book... hinges on some universal issues, namely Bob’s struggles to rekindle his romance, recapture his creativity, and regain control of his life. To the book’s credit, Mohr never loses the story’s emotional heart.” —Kirkus Reviews"With his fourth novel, Joshua Mohr pushes himself into bold new territory and doesn't skip a beat. Fight Song is a whimsical, madcap, delightfully depraved fable for our age." —Jonathan Evison“Bob Coffen of Joshua Mohr's Fight Song is among the most vivid characters I've encountered in recent fiction. He's a man so alive on the page, funny, self-depreciating, confused. We can all relate. As much love song as fight song, I found myself rooting for Coffen on every page of this surprising and poignant book.” —Peter Orner"A wry, intelligent, and sublimely funny novel, Fight Song answers Big Questions while keeping the reader entirely absorbed and thoroughly entertained.” —Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers“Think This is 40 set in Silicon Valley, filtered through Little Miss Sunshine with echoes of Wall-E and American Beauty – but uplifting!” —San Francisco MagazineAbout the AuthorJoshua Mohr is the author of the novels Termite Parade (a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection), Some Things that Meant the World to Me (one of O Magazine's Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller), and Damascus, published in the fall of 2011 to much critical acclaim. Mohr teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.