Fifty Grand

"Fifty Grand" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1927, and it appeared later that year in Hemingway’s short story collection Men Without Women. It bears many similarities to an earlier story by Hemingway, "A Matter of Colour", which was published in the Oak Park High School literary magazine Tabula when Hemingway was sixteen. Both stories are about fixed boxing matches which do not go as planned, and both are narrated by a character in the story rather than an omniscient narrator or the protagonist; they are the only two Hemingway stories to use this narrative technique.

"Fifty Grand" tells the story of Jack Brennan as he trains for and boxes in his fight with challenger Jimmy Walcott. The first part of the story takes place in New Jersey, the second in New York. It shows Hemingway's love for and knowledge of boxing, and his use of omission and understatement, and contains an early expression of his moral code.

Jack Brennan, the current welterweight champion, is at Danny Hogan's New Jersey training camp (called the "health farm" throughout the story) struggling to get in shape for his upcoming fight with favorite Jimmy Walcott. His trainer and friend Jerry Doyle is at the camp with him, and it is Doyle who narrates the story. Jack is not optimistic about the fight and does not adjust to life at the health farm; "He didn't like being away from his wife and the kids and he was sore and grouchy most of the time," Doyle reports. Hogan and Doyle talk briefly about racehorses, and when they ask Jack whether he bets on them, Jack replies that he stopped because he lost money.

Jack asks Doyle what he thinks of the shape he is in. Doyle tries to stall, saying: "Well, you can’t tell ... You got a week to get around into form," but Jack asks for a straight answer. Doyle finally tells him, "You’re not right," at which point Jack confides that he has been unable to sleep, despite being tired, because he misses his wife. Hogan, seeing Jack's condition a few days later, tells Doyle that Jack has no chance against Walcott. Doyle replies, "Well ... everybody’s got to get it sometime."

The day before the fight, Jack lists the things that concern him when he can not sleep: "I worry about property I got up in the Bronx, I worry about property I got in Florida. I worry about the kids. I worry about the wife. Sometimes I think about fights." For the rest of the day Jack is in a foul mood as he tries to loosen up and run through a few rounds of shadowboxing, but even then he does not look good. Jack cannot break a sweat jumping rope and stops working for the day.

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