Headshot (Rita Bullwinkel)

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel is between a Novel and a Novella - at under 250 pages in large font, it is just the right size to read in one sitting - and that is a must to fully enjoy this book. I read it over 3 days and I think my reading experience of this book lacks something - maybe a chance to have had a ring side, interruption free experience of two days in the life of 8 girls - 8 amateur boxers fighting in the Women’s 18 and Under - Daughters of America Cup on July 14th and 15th, 20XX.

We read the book as a series of bouts between the various pairings - 8 girls meet in knockouts till we reach the finals of the tournament, that will find a winner for this year. For some of them, it is the last time to compete in this tournament - maybe the last championship in their life, for others there maybe some more chances. But all of them are fighting for glory symbolised by the chance to lift the tacky plastic cup in the display case. No matter, fight they will with everything they have. In each bout, we see the past - the run up to this moment and the future - the runway beyond this moment. We understand their hopes and fears and see the scars that they carry. While they fight their opponent, they also fight themselves and their ghosts. Small and big incidents in their lives that have shaped who they are and who they will be.

The story has no plot and no twists. Whatever had to happen has happened and whatever will happen is already known in this moment. But we are privy to their innermost thoughts as they take on an opponent in a ruthless boxing encounter. It may be a sanitised sport today with rules and protective gear and penalties if you step out of bounds, but it evolved from a blood sport where the winner took something and the loser lost everything, often life itself. And in spirit, it continues to be the same. Once in the ring, there is no one else in the world but the other girl who you need to overpower - by a combination of physical, emotional and psychological tactics. 

It is written masterfully and in a style that somehow seems perfect to writing about teenage girls boxing. Things which i normally would have been irritated about in any other book, seem just perfect here. There are places the author repeats the full name of the girl in nearly every sentence and upto 7 times in a page. Places where nearly the same long sentence is repeated twice on the same page. Random unconnected things are mentioned. But all of this somehow works for this book and i cannot imagine in any other way it could have been written.