October 1, 2023
From personal tragedy to family expectations to the desire simply to be the best, eight teenage girl boxers each have their own reasons for competing in a national competition held in Reno, NV. Whiting Award winner Bullwinkel, who won the Believer Book Award for her collection Belly Up, articulates the tensions and sheer physical joy they experience. Prepub Alert.
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Starred review from December 15, 2023
Over one hot July weekend at Bob's Boxing Palace in Reno, Nevada, eight young boxers fight to the finish. Bullwinkel's first novel, following the story collection Belly Up (2018), begins with a poster and a bracket for "The 12th Annual Women's 18 & Under Daughters of America Cup at Bob's Boxing Palace," with first-round pairings and names that will become incantations as this unusual and striking novel unfolds. Artemis Victor v. Andi Taylor; Kate Heffer v. Rachel Doricko; Iggy Lang v. Izzy Lang; Rose Mueller v. Tanya Maw. Each match unfolds both in the physicality of the dusty ring and in the consciousnesses of the fighters, their coaches, parents, and other spectators in the tiny audience. There's not a single line of dialogue in the book, but rather a hypnotically intense, God's-eye narrative voice that describes the hits and misses of each round and plumbs the backstories of each boxer: One is haunted by a terrible experience as a lifeguard; one has developed a "weird hat" philosophy based on a rotting coonskin hat; one calms herself by reciting the digits of pi; two are cousins known as prodigies in their small hometown. The girls' bodies are evoked just as memorably: One has a purple stain on her lip that has shaped her experiences since infancy; one has legs that look like "bundles of dry pasta covered in skin"; one has looped braids sticking out of her headgear, making droopy circles on her back. As each fighter advances, she takes the spirit of the girl she's bested with her to the next round: "Usually, as a tournament progresses, there is a feeling of whittling, of a group of many reduced to a single champion, but here in Bob's Boxing Palace, at the Daughters of America tourna-ment, as each bout has been fought, there has been the feeling of accumulation." For each young woman, Bullwinkel also conjures a life ahead, and these brilliantly imagined future selves add to the richness of the characterizations. The classic momentum of a sports narrative unfurls in unusually lyric and muscular language: a ferocious novel.
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Starred review from January 15, 2024
The smashing debut novel from Bullwinkel (after the collection Belly Up) takes the measure of eight teenage girls as they compete at a boxing tournament in Reno, Nev. The first match features Andi Taylor, troubled by memories of the boy who drowned at a community pool during her lifeguard shift, up against Artemis Victor, who’s from a family of fighters and is looking to show up her accomplished older sister. Next up is oddball Rachel Doricko, whose trademark raccoon-skin hat is just one way she keeps her opponents off-balance, taking on the more pampered, mathematical-minded Kate Heffer. Cousins Iggy and Izzy Lang have more than familial rivalry on their minds when they face off. Lastly, two vicious young Texans— Rose Mueller, a spiritual seeker who’s turned away from the Christian church she was raised in, and Tanya Maw, destined for semistardom—step into the ring to settle their differences. For all the toe-to-toe realism and visceral descriptions of the girls’ blood sport, Bullwinkel’s real interest is in their inner lives and the picture that forms when considered as a whole (“you can send your mind up through the hole of the worlds built by the other girl boxers travel through the layers of different imagined futures, and the different ways each girl has of being”). The fragile lives of her weekend warriors are faithfully portrayed in prose that is intelligible but never commonplace, virtuosic yet grounded. Bullwinkel’s knockout performance mops the floor with rank pretenders. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency.
March 1, 2024
Bullwinkel's (Belly Up, 2018) uniquely structured first novel opens with a bracket: four matchups, eight girls' names listed. Taking place at Bob's Boxing Palace in Reno, this is the Daughters of America Cup; over the next two days the best teen girl boxer will be crowned. Echoing the double meaning of Bullwinkel's title--a photo portrait, a blow to the head--each fight unfolds as a chapter, a story of the fight taking place that also rewinds and occasionally zooms ahead to tell us how these girls got here and where they will go. The characters, like chaos agent Rachel Doricko and fighting cousins Iggy and Izzy Lang, are well captured, and Bullwinkel's dingy, fishbowl-like, time-forgotten setting puts readers ringside. The author writes with intimate knowledge of boxing, of how the girls move and hit each other and how their bodies react to these blows. This is a special little world for girls and by girls--outside of a few family members and a handful of disinterested male coaches, they're the only people there--that Bullwinkel draws with grit and grace.
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