Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine

Thom Jones was a National Book Award finalist, O. Henry Award winner, and the author of the three story collections The Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap, and Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine. He received an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1973, and worked an array of jobs from copywriter to janitor until he was published for the first time, in The New Yorker, in his mid-forties. His stories went on to be published in other magazines such as Harper’sEsquire, Playboy, and Storyas well. Jones died in 2016 and was eulogized in The New Yorker by Joyce Carol Oates.