I would never have picked up a book about boxing but Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel was sent to me as part of the Good Book Club subscription. And then I saw it was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, so I figured it was time to give it a try. I didn’t love it but I do think the writing is great, Bullwinkel is talented and the only negative for me is the boxing. Which arguably isn’t the point of the novel at all.

Headshot follows the finals of the Women’s 18 And Under Daughters of America Cup. Over two days, eight young women compete to be the US national youth champion. Each chapter follows one match, describing both the bout itself and the thoughts of the two fighters. We get brief flashes back to their lives so far and flashes forward to the futures ahead of them, so that in 240 pages eight stories are told, stories that intersect at this one point.

These are not rich girls; their backgrounds vary from dirt poor to lower middle class. They are all aware this might be the one time in their life they have a shot at winning something notable. Some have family expectations resting on them but most are here under personal ambition alone. Which makes the wins and losses personal too.

“Andi hadn’t felt much for Artemis in the first round. Artemis had just been a body that Andi was fighting. But now, they are two minutes in and the direness has become apparent. Andi drove 2800 miles from Tampa, Florida, to get here…And here Andi is, in front of Artemis Victor. Artemis Victor has to see her. Andi is going to make Artemis Victor see her, and the next time Andi looks at Artemis, she begins to hate her.”

Bullwinkel’s descriptions of boxing are visceral. Her depictions of the eight young contestants are similarly deeply, grittily real. I can relate to these young women – they’re people I grew up with, people I drank with in my late teens.

During each bout, the participants’ focus switches from the physicality of their bodies to their families, romantic interests, pets, part-time jobs, school, their day so far. Some coolly, some passionately, they appraise their opponents, hunting for weakness, for a way in.

“Rachel Doricko hits Kate Heffer in the shoulder, then the mouth, and then the stomach. Rachel Doricko is building a mountain of hits. The structure of her hits is growing larger and larger. Rachel feels that she is winning in small, well-formed increments…I have this girl, this Kate Heffer, in a corner, thinks Rachel. I am going to throw her off a cliff.”

It’s so well realised that each hit, each injury inflicted, made me wince as if I was there in person. I could feel the bruise forming, hear the fist connecting, see the black eye swelling. Which, as I said, is great writing but I look away and cover my ears when a film gets too brutal. I don’t like violence and I don’t like boxing. So I won’t be keeping hold of this book to reread it. But I will look out for other works by Bullwinkel on different themes.

Published 2024 by Penguin Random House (US)/Daunt Books (UK).

Source: The Good Book Club.