CLEVELAND, Ohio — For a long time, the first unspoken rule of Cleveland’s Schvitz Social Club was the same as the first and second rules of “Fight Club.”

“You do not talk about Fight Club,” said in one’s best Brad Pitt accent. But there’s a certain poetry to a place where sweat, steak and friendship collide.

With its centennial anniversary on the horizon, folks like local author and humorist Joshua Womack are talking.

And justifiably so.

In “ Sweaty Stories from the Cleveland Schvitz ,” Womack captures that poetry—one steam-filled anecdote at a time—through the lens of one of the city’s most unusual and enduring institutions.

Tucked away on in the Kinsman neighborhood, the Schvitz Social Club is easy to miss if you don’t know where to look . The brick building is plain, utilit

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