One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing - Softcover

Dunn, Katherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0980139422 ISBN 13: 9780980139426

Publisher: Schaffner Press, Inc., 2009

Synopsis

Published together for the first time, this anthology of essays on boxing covers the sport in all its forms and at its many levels. Written in bestselling author Katherine Dunn’s characteristic vernacular, these pieces range from portraits of legendary fighters such as Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, and Mike Tyson to the unsung stories of trainers, amateurs, promoters, cutmen, and a pair of pugilistic priests. Spanning 30 years and including all who make up the vibrant boxing world, this compilation from one of the most original voices in American sports literature finely elevates the sport and communicates its beauty, passion, and character.

About this title

About the Author

Katherine Dunn is an award-winning boxing journalist whose work has appeared in many publications, including Esquire, KO Magazine, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Playboy, The Ring, Sports Illustrated, and Vogue. She is the author of three novels, including Geek Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. In 2004, Dunn and photographer Jim Lommasson won the Lange-Taylor Documentary Prize for their work on the book Shadow Boxers. She is currently associate editor of cyberboxingzone.com, an internet boxing encyclopedia and magazine. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Dunn (Geek Love) collects 22 essays and articles written over the last quarter-century. In 1980, Dunn's then-husband had her watch a fight on TV and from that day forward she was hooked. Soon afterward, Dunn began freelancing boxing pieces to an alternative paper in Oregon, the Willamette Weekly. Over the years, Dunn has written on such subjects as hand wraps and cuts, on fighters famous (Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler) and obscure (Andy Minsker) and on the phenomenon of women's boxing. Her articles have appeared in publications that include Playboy, Sports Illustrated and Mother Jones. Although Dunn's fiction is celebrated for its style, her essay prose rarely rises above the journeyman. Dunn seems to have a hard time deciding on her authorial position from essay to essay—advocate, journalist or eyewitness—and the lack of focus leaves the reader equally confused. Overall, the collection lacks unity: since Dunn is producing occasional pieces for various markets, she recycles the same details in different places, especially with the pieces on women and boxing. In a few articles, however, like Defending Tyson and the Minsker pieces, Dunn unveils insight that exceeds the merely perfunctory. While Dunn may be an old pro when it comes to fiction, with boxing she remains an amateur, albeit an enthusiastic one. (May)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Schaffner Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0980139422
• ISBN 13: 9780980139426
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 248