For those of us who consider ourselves fans there is no sport quite so pure, so outright poetic as boxing, because this simple art of consensual combat offers no place to hide. Unlike other working-class sports such as football, with its amateur dramatics and petty squabbles, or American football and its endless ad breaks, boxing boils it down to the basics: hit and be hit, and in the best fighters we get to see the perfect symbiosis of artistry, strategy and brutality. Humans like to watch violence as much as we like to tell stories, and each fighter brings with them a narrative.
Little wonder, then, that down the years boxing has inspired some of the best sports writing, and we can now add American author Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel to an expansive canon.
