‘Headshot’ is Rita Bullwinkel’s innovative novel about a group of girl boxers, published by Daunt Books in March 2024.
The first thing to say about this book is how interesting the format is: it follows eight boxers (from the quarter-final stage) competing across two days in a fictional amateur tournament in the USA. The book’s chapters focus on each of the seven bouts as the girls progress or exit the tournament. Within this framework Bullwinkel introduces the competitors, their backstories and motivations for boxing.
Echoing Joyce Carol Oates’ musings on boxers’ greatest opponents being themselves, ‘Headshot’ takes place very much in the minds of the boxers, highlighting how much of the sport is about controlling one’s self-doubt. Across the two days the boxers battle their own demons, involving tragedy and sibling rivalry, and familial expectation.
As someone who attends a lot of amateur boxing events, the descriptions of the tournament feel pretty realistic, with lots of time for boredom and self-reflection – the perfect breeding ground for uncertainty. The book also spotlights just how odd all amateur sporting events are, with random groups of people (often very small in number) standing around, either in support of competitors, or in anticipation of competing. There is specific mention of parents watching on, very glad that their daughters are getting the opportunity to box, and happy to support them, but more than a little nonplussed as to why they might want to do it in the first place.
I’ve witnessed hundreds of family members standing around rings, in a whole host of venues, in complete awe of what their young relatives are doing with their bodies and mental fortitude, yet still completely baffled by what they’re watching. This is probably most pronounced with girls and young women boxing, as there still isn’t much of a precedent for their actions in a boxing ring.
Setting the novel in the world of girls’ boxing allowed Bullwinkel to be very future-facing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently for an essay I’ve been writing, but it has also struck me how rare it is for boxing books to contemplate any sort of future. Boxing in general is obsessed with the past, whether it is contextualising a boxer’s career by comparing it to that of boxers from earlier generations, or by building a prospect’s career by matching them with a former champion. The only striking recent outlier is ‘Damage’ by Tris Dixon, which looks at the necessary changes to the sport required in order to tackle the issues around CTE and brain damage which fighters face.
This freedom to imagine a future for the eight girl boxers is no doubt a result of their gender. With no bindings to endless record books and tedious arguments as to which modern day boxer could beat a champion from the 1930s, Bullwinkel is free to speculate on what it may mean to become an elderly woman who had once been a competitive youth boxer. Of course, as I’ve written about in previous blog posts, there are a good number of mature women who have had extensive boxing careers, but none yet has grown up in an environment where it was possible to box from a young age in a structured and supportive sporting framework, with real goals to aim for.
The fact that boxing is all too often viewed as a purely aggressive and violent sport is countered cleverly a number of times in the book, but one analogy which I liked particularly was the link between schoolgirl hand-clapping games, the choreography involved in these games, and how this coordination of movement helps with mastering the sport. I always enjoy when the perceived masculinity of boxing is questioned, and it is highlighted how important ‘feminine’ traits can be to being a successful boxer.
This final point is going to expose my ignorance of American amateur boxing and/or highlight how I should read fiction without getting bogged down in anything which I feel contradicts what I think is fact. BUT, we boxing fans can be more than a little obsessive about details. I found it hard at times to not get distracted by the fact that these fifteen-year-old girls seemed to be boxing 8 x 2 minute rounds, with the result of each round being made public by the judges, and (unless I completely misread this), being made to sit down between each round. That being said, I do enjoy when any book makes me question what I think I know, and I will enjoy researching how close the novel is to the American tournament structure.
Overall though, it’s been great to read a new novel based on an aspect of boxing previously overlooked. I’m on a bit of a roll in that respect, and my next blog post will be about a novel published only six weeks ago.
Writers on Boxing 
Leave a comment