The Boxer's Heart: How I Fell in Love with the Ring

For me, this book immediately worked on the most important level - as a vivid, inside account of what it is like to become a boxer, to train at a famous fight gymnasium, and ultimately to enter the ring as a professional. The book is also a lot more: an intelligent meditation on the history and technique of the "sweet science," a reflection on feminism, gender politics, and the vicissitudes of body image, and a narrative arc describing one woman's journey in synthesizing meaning from her personal experience. The juxtaposition of these elements is an ambitious undertaking, and the success of the author in so doing derives as much from her gifted prose style as from her observations and insights regarding the world of pugilism.

Anyone interested in boxing, sports, and/or feminism will find this book compelling, as will anyone who enjoys a good story. I am looking forward to reading Sekules's next book - on whatever topic about which she next decides to write.


Great Book!   October 9, 2000
I loved this book! I loved it so much I'm not sure where to begin this review! It is certainly well written, entertaining and witty. She also makes many observations about female fighting, and being a woman in this world in general. I am a brown belt in karate, and I really identified with some of her experiences. I found her to be a very honest and emotionally courageous writer. It's a great glimpse into the world of women's boxing but beyond that it's an entertaining and thoughtful memoir.


This Reader's Heart   October 7, 2000
Those of us who thought we knew fighting from the inside out better re-examine our armchairs. Here's a surprising book about boxing - and a book that is full of surprises. I don't particularly like boxing, but reading The Boxer's Heart half changed my mind. The author has as much to say about boxing (and the fight game), as she does about men and women and the way our culture pushes us to see ourselves. It's a compelling read on many levels. One, it's a damned good story about what led one very interesting woman into the ring. Two it's superbly written; she knows language and how to work it like a jab or uppercut - and watch out for the unexpected knockout punch. She can write AND box. On another level this is an involving, compassionate, detailed and painstaking piece of personal reportage about the fight game at a time when the game is beginning to make way for female pugilists (and not so fast either). It's also a thought-provoking critique of conventional male/female role models via the surprising agency (at least to this reader) of this most violent, supposedly most masculine of sports. and is it a sport, or merely sanctioned brutality, a legitimate way to vent murderous rage? the author raises lots of questions inside her compelling may-I-dare-to-suggest distinctly female yet unisex narrative. The book plunges the reader into a ring of rich and challenging insights and keeps you on the ropes till the closing bell. The writing is tough and compassionate, feeling and probing, literary yet down to earth and always bobbing and weaving a spell. The Boxer's Heart is one of the best fight books I've ever read - your adrenaline is in for a ride. Author Kate Sekules performs open heart surgery on boxing in a way no man could - yet she doesn't pull any of her punches. You're going down on the canvas, if you deserve to! She boxes - sometimes shadow boxes - with elusive truths of a deeply personal nature - as do we all - in a way that transcends both ring AND gender divide. This is a classic about the fight game told with passion and wit, destined to appeal, I think, to males and females on the basis of something other than their gender. In other words, to anyone with an interest in themselves and others and life. And I come back to the writing, it sings. Bringing Gleasons and other boxing icons to life like no other fight book or flick i've read or seen. Well worth the ticket price.


Extraordinary intertwining of many themes   September 27, 2000
After reading great reviews about this book, I got a copy even though boxing--let alone women's boxing!--isn't my thing. But then, this book isn't about boxing: it's about life, love, mastering fear and pain, themes that this amazing writer ties together by means of boxing & conflict as a metaphor for life. (Still, there are many fascinating details about real, 'non-metaphorical' boxing too--the first chapter, about the author's preparations for her first professional bout, is so suspenseful and well-told that I couldn't put the book down until I'd gotten to the end when Ms. Sekules tells us the outcome, after detouring through other fascinating territory about her life, the history of women in boxing, and many other issues.) Ms. Sekules does a dazzling job here of intertwining the gripping descriptions of her life in boxing with those issues that that 'the ring' is meant (I think) to represent here: the difficulties of loving (loving oneself not least of all), of coming to terms with one's fears about life and self-worth, of realizing one's limitations--and, in the end, also one's strengths. It's a moving journey.

Also, the author's narrative voice is unlike any I've ever come across: strong, clear, very idiosyncratic, and, in the end, totally winning. It reminded me of the first time I read "Catcher in the Rye"--it's that personal and quirky and astute. I hope there are many more Sekules books in the pipeline. This is clearly a major new author.