#119: ‘The Boxing Diaries’ by Marion Dunn.

The Boxing Diaries, published by Saraband, documents Marion Dunn’s later-life love affair with boxing training.

Following Dunn’s first boxing training session at the age of fifty we follow the author through a few years of physical and emotional ups and downs, in and out of the gym. We are quickly presented with a very familiar story, that of a ‘newbie’ falling for the technicalities of the sport and its training methods. Throughout the book there are regular and admirable acknowledgements of the role that coaches and fellow recreational boxers play in foundation of the sport – as well as the motivation to keep returning when you might feel too exhausted.

The overall aim and theme of this book feel very realistic, namely the obsessive repetition needed to master any single technique (and the speed at which any perceived progress can simply vanish). There is a particular through line in Dunn’s story as we are made fully aware of her struggles to perfect (or even achieve) a left hook. And while this never-ending quest might feel all too real to any amateur or recreational boxer, it doesn’t make for the most flowing of reading experiences. I think this book may have benefitted from being formatted as a diary when describing the training sessions, as it could have handled them with more brevity, while breaking into more conventional prose for the more personal sections.

My favourite aspects of this book all revolve around the support and camaraderie of boxers and coaches, all spending hours every week in the gym; and the respect granted for likeminded commitment. I’ll end this post with a quote along those lines:

This is the first joy that I discover in the boxing gym, that no one really cares about anything – who you are, how you look, where you are from or even how fit you are – except that you give it your all.