Pain was Joe Grim’s self-expression, his livelihood and reason for being.

A superstar boxer who rarely won a fight, Grim distinguished himself for his extraordinary ability to withstand physical punishment.

In this wild and expansive novel, Michael Winkler moves between the present day and Grim’s 1908–09 tour of Australia, bending genres and histories into a kaleidoscopic investigation of pain, masculinity, and narrative.

Pain is often said to defy the limits of language. And yet Grimmish suggests that pain – physical and mental – is also the most familiar and universal human condition; and, perhaps, the secret source of our impulse to tell stories.