John Griffith “Jack” London, birth name John Griffith Chaney, was a prolific American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist, and social activist. He is considered as the pioneer of commercial magazine fiction. He was one of the first fiction writers to obtain world-wide fame and a large fortune from his fiction alone. “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, set in the Klondike Gold Rush, are considered to be his most popular and well-known works. His short stories, “To Build a Fire”, “An Odyssey of the North”, and “Love of Life”, are also among his famous works. He also wrote about the South Pacific In such stories as “The Pearls of Parley” and “The Heathen”, and about the San Francisco Bay area in “The Sea Wolf”. Jack was a passionate advocate of Socialism, Unionization, and the Rights of Workers. He was also part of the radical literary group, “The Crowd”, in San Francisco. He produced several powerful works on the topics of Socialism, Unionization, and the Rights of Workers, such as his dystopian novel “The Iron Heel”, his non-fiction expose “The People of the Abyss” and “The War of the Classes”.
Before anyone knew there was such a thing, Jack London gave us the natural: young Pat Glendon has never drunk alcohol nor tasted tobacco. He loves nature, is afraid of cities, and is shy of women. And he is a perfect fighter. Summoned from the city to consider such a prospect, cynical Sam Stubener, manager of prizefighters, is struck by the boy's extraordinary athletic grace -- and soon man and boy are off to San Francisco to take on the heavyweight world.
The Abysmal Brute is the story of natural grace pitted against worldly brutishness. A subtle social drama played out in the arena of sport -- in a day long before sport moved to the center of American culture -- it is also a rousing romantic tale in the tradition of one of our great storytellers. As Pat hones his skill -- and his curious style -- on one champion fighter after another, he contends for the heart of a lovely admirer and for the soul of professional boxing, whose rampant corruption his blows expose.