I first came across Rita Bullwinkel when she published her 2016 short story collection, Belly Up. This is back when I read every book nominated for a major award (Belly Up deservedly won the Believer Book Award). I miss those days because while I will never ever EVER do it again. EVER. It did introduce me to a host of brilliant new voices, like Bullwinkel. So, when she announced that she had a novel coming out, I had to buy it. And read it. Having done that, I can say I have now read two astonishing but very different novels about boxing — Fat City by Leonard Gardner and Headshot.

Eight teenage girls have come to Bob’s Boxing Place in Reno, Nevada, to fight for the Daughters of America Cup. Across two days, and in front of an audience of judges, family and coaches (barely enough to fill a row in the warehouse/auditorium), the girls will put their very identities on the line to box for a plastic trophy. That’s it. That’s the plot.

The novel is structured around each bout. As the girls throw punches, we are drawn into their thoughts, a mix of memories (very few of them good), personality quirks, and why they’ve chosen boxing. There’s next to no dialogue. The prose — told in a very tight third person — has a beautiful, balletic rhythm. It’s dense, yes, with Bullwinkel frequently repeating the character’s full name (Tanya Maw, Izzy Lang, Rachel Doricko). But it’s broken into small chunks, swapping between perspectives, even jumping into the thoughts of the parents and coaches, but always returning to the girls. And as such, we get these very detailed but sympathetic portraits. 

Bullwinkel deliberately doesn’t tell us when the America’s Cup takes place. It could be today or two decades ago (we know it happens this century). It means Bullwinkel can jump forward thirty or fourty years, encountering the girls as middle-aged and elderly women. We come to understand how this one fight informed their lives, their sense of who they are. In some cases, profoundly; in other instances, not at all. Of course, these future glimpses don’t make Headshot a genre novel (even if a late chapter is set on Mars), but it is the sort of genre-bending that made Belly Up such a memorable read and has the same effect here.

Headshot will likely be on several nomination lists come year’s end, and it deserves to be.