I can't think of another book that achieves so much with so little. Gardner's style is quiet, but his characters have such life. The novel takes place primarily in Stockton, California, there is a definite lineage in Gardner's portrayal of the city and its poverty to the realism of John Steinbeck's California; driving the characters, too, is the allure of a better life. The characters are what make this novel so rich for its short length.

No other sport is as romanticized as boxing, but Fat City's singular strength is that it lives in the details of the boxing world without sentimentality; we see the characters live with the realities of impoverishment, of getting old, of being horny, and of perhaps just not being good enough. There are a few moments in this book that are some of the bleakest and most pessimistic passages I've read in a long time. But that's not to say the book isn't without humour.