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Staff Pick

Headshot

by Rita Bullwinkel



Headshot is the story of the eight best teenage girl boxers in the United States, told over the two days of a championship tournament and structured as a series of face-offs. As the girls' pasts and futures collide, the specific joy and violence of the sport comes to life with electric energy, and a portrait emerges of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness and sheer physical pleasure that motivates each of these young women to fight.

This is a novel about the radicalness and strangeness of being physically intimate with another human when you are measuring your own body, through competition, against theirs. What does the intimacy of a physical competition feel like? What does it mean to walk through life in the bodies we've been given, and what does it mean to use those bodies with abandon?

Funny, propulsive, obsessive and ecstatic, Headshot is equal parts subtle and intense, as it brings us to the sidelines of the ring and above and beyond it, examining closely the eight girls' lives, which intersect for a moment - a universe that shimmers and resonates.
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FICTION & POETRY
FICTION
NON FICTION
SPORT

AUCK IN STOCK

WGTN IN STOCK

Pages:

232

Published:

4 Jun 2024

Format

Paperback

Publisher

Daunt Books

ISBN:

9781914198724



Headshot is the story of the eight best teenage girl boxers in the United States, told over the two days of a championship tournament and structured as a series of face-offs. As the girls' pasts and futures collide, the specific joy and violence of the sport comes to life with electric energy, and a portrait emerges of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness and sheer physical pleasure that motivates each of these young women to fight.

This is a novel about the radicalness and strangeness of being physically intimate with another human when you are measuring your own body, through competition, against theirs. What does the intimacy of a physical competition feel like? What does it mean to walk through life in the bodies we've been given, and what does it mean to use those bodies with abandon?

Funny, propulsive, obsessive and ecstatic, Headshot is equal parts subtle and intense, as it brings us to the sidelines of the ring and above and beyond it, examining closely the eight girls' lives, which intersect for a moment - a universe that shimmers and resonates.
$28.00

Not to be overdramatic, but I feel like this book reprogrammed my brain? Set inbetween the punches of a girls boxing tournament, we explore the lives & psyches of 8 young women as they collide physically & metaphysically. An introspective character study that crackles with frenetic energy. I've never read anything like this before. Brilliant.

Eden's avatarEden, Unity Books wellington