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The name F. X. Toole was the pseudonym of Jerry Boyd (1930-2002).
He was a boxing trainer and his writing in these stories clearly display h
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The name F. X. Toole was the pseudonym of Jerry Boyd (1930-2002).
He was a boxing trainer and his writing in these stories clearly display his great knowledge on boxing.
His stories are through various characters in the boxing arena. He tells them through the eyes of the fighter female and male, the trainer and manager and the cutman. He sticks his characters amongst problems in society crime, racism, brutality and politics. He takes his characters through courage, lose, love, hope and triumph.
This would be great for the fighting fan as it’s filled with useful boxing advice.
I have included excerpts below that concern this plus my review of two short stories.
The key ingredients that make a champion are highlighted in one of his stories where he mentions in a paragraph.
A Million-dollar fighter, that’s what she was to be. A fighting spirit raised in the Ozarks where flipping burgers was not the fate she wanted to remain in. This caged bird wanted to flap her wings and stamp her future literally through her fists to a more independent and prosperous life.
Those days of watching Rocky inspired many a kid to rise up from the poverty or concrete jungle, to don their fists with hand wraps and boxing gloves to tread upon a warrior path, to make a future away from the streets and boredom. I believe the boxing gym and the fighting process does successfully instil hope and betterment for life for many a person especially the youth. Many love to relive the Ali shuffle or the Sonny Liston stare. Boxing is something that holds quite dear to my heart in my youth I spent many a night pounding the bag, shadow boxing, skipping and sparring. I had dreams of making it to the Olympics and going pro. The concern over punch-drunk friends and fighters who have inflicted blood clots in the brain weaned me away slowly but gradually.
The art of fighting can discipline the ferocity and waywardness in a man and in this story a woman. Boxing does wonders and has proved to be a great deterrent against crime with the youth. My legends from boxing are Sugar Ray Robinson pound for pound best fighter, Roberto Duran ‘manos de piedra ‘ and Muhammad Ali and modern fighters like Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Junior.
Female boxing was in the past not celebrated as much as now and only recently it has been included in the Olympics. The first woman to win a Gold in female boxing was a British fighter in the London 2012 Olympics. I watched that fight, and few others, is was best bit of boxing I had seen in a while since I gave up watching boxing for years, I was enjoying the fight there was a real challenge taking place history was being made. She dropped her opponent for a standing count and delivered some nice combinations and right-handers.
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Nicola Adams the worlds first woman to be a Olympic Boxing Champion in London 2012 Olympics.
There are some other issues that are highlighted in this short story in this excerpt.
“Most important, he simply didn’t like seeing women getting hit. Regardless, there were now girls in the amateurs, and soon they’d be going to the Olympics. There would be more and more of them, so they would get better and better. That meant they’d be better than the ones currently fighting, and people said that would be good for the game. He didn’t care how good they got. Girls getting busted up went against everything he believed in.
Okay, he thought, times have changed. Dames are doing what guys is doing, but that don’t make it right. And then there were the practical reasons. Scheduling fights around periods. And bruised tits. And what if one was pregnant and had a miscarriage because of a fight? That, and he couldn’t cuss.”
In the end man or woman now has a choice. This story centers more on this woman’s professional pursuit of the sport. When she finally makes it to Madison Square Gardens then she’s was in the right direction. The only way some try to win is dirty fighting those after bell punches, rabbit and kidney punches and thumb in the eyes. She had everything to win but one opponent was to make her future in boxing null. The road the trainer and fighter chose to take was sad but it makes you ponder on what would you have done?
The movie adaptation with Clint Eastwood was just as much as a tearjerker.
I would have loved to read of her return to the ring in a kind of Rockyesque way but such is the reality of life that we have to settle with something less but heartfelt and memorable in this story. This story is a great story featuring a woman’s journey through a male dominated sport, the dangerous but noble art of boxing.
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Rope Burns This is the longer story of this collection. It is about a fighters hope and dreams quashed. There is racial tension, the Rodney king beating and riots. A tale from the streets where a few characters are killing left right and center in their own neighborhood for money and power. One white trainer hopes to take one black fighter to the Olympics and make him into a million dollar fighter but yet again your and not amidst a Rocky movie. This is bloody and there is some vengeance. This and million dollar baby the two better stories of the novel.
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Excerpts from this book:
“When Frankie Dunn told a fighter how to move and why, the fighter could see it through Frankie’s eyes, and feel it slip on into his own flesh and down into his bones, and he’d flush with the magic of understanding and the feeling of power. Some called the old man Doc, some called him Uncle Frank. Old-time black fighters and trainers called him Frankie Dunn Frankie Dunn, repeating his name with a node or a smile. Frankie loved Warriors.”
“Trainers, swaying like cobras, worked with their fighters, isolated in the noise and the heat and the steam. Some hunched close to whisper, others yelled out loud. Sweat poured off everyone, even the dozen or so onlookers who sat in the short stretch of low bleachers facing the two rings. Boom boxes blared different music from four corners and along the walls, making the place sound like a cell block.”
“Most important, he simply didn’t like seeing women getting hit. Regardless, there were now girls in the amateurs, and soon they’d be going to the Olympics. There would be more and more of them, so they would get better and better. That meant they’d be better than the ones currently fighting, and people said that would be good for the game. He didn’t care how good they got. Girls getting busted up went against everything he believed in.
Okay, he thought, times have changed. Dames are doing what guys is doing, but that don’t make it right. And then there were the practical reasons. Scheduling fights around periods. And bruised tits. And what if one was pregnant and had a miscarriage because of a fight? That, and he couldn’t cuss.”
“Frankie said, “Watch my hips turn as I go from foot to foot. Ass is where the power comes from, understand?”
“He taught her how to stay on the balls of her foot, how to generate momentum off her right toe; how to keep her weight over her left knee, to flex on it when she fired her jab; how to double up and triple the jab, which would keep the opponent backing up on her heels. He taught her how to cut off the ring, how to slip punches and counter off lefts and rights. No matter how hard he drove her, she was always ready for more. His heart went out to her, macushla-mo cuishle in Gaelic: darling, my blood.”
“Frankie said, “You can’t give up hope. Even the doctors say-“ she cut him off.”Aint no hope. I’m deadweight, cant you see? Aint no insides to this body you’re lookin at. The bird in me can’t fly.”
“The pretty fighter was the man, and fighting pretty meant you were slick in the way you moved, the way you threw punches, and the way you slipped punches; that you moved while you punched, so that you kept your opponent off balance and missing and without thump in his punches.”
“Trick him. Boxing is a game of lies.”
“There’s a saying in boxing: don’t forget the people you meet on the way up, because they’re the same ones you’ll meet on the way down. To that Mac always added: First your legs go, and then your money, and then your friends.”
The story opens with a grand paragraph of affairs..
"PEOPLE DO not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off into t
The story opens with a grand paragraph of affairs..
"PEOPLE DO not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off into the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California good pieces that he carried in his trouser band."
True Grit a story that will stand the test of time not due to wonderful prose or sentences but due to the characters and the actual storytelling. This story is successful due to its creation of one big-hearted spunky young woman who is bent on reaping vengeance upon the guilt individual who had taken her cherished father from this earth. She hires a man she hopes has some true grit in aiding her bringing the murderer to justice. Eventually she finds herself part of a trio that's going to have its communication problems, flaws and a series of sabotages that try to stop her in her tracks. This girl won't give up it, giving up has no place in her psyche.
She's a memorable, witty, gusty girl, who is one step ahead of other that try to outsmart her, those that don't give her credit due to her physical appearance and her age. If you ever have a to leave behind a young girl, a legacy, she would be the one that many fathers would be proud to leave behind on this earth to face its darkest hours.
She the young soul 'Mattie' is a strong potent voice thee driving force of the narrative of this story. A girl's best friend is her horse in this story a beauty back beauty of a steed, these two gallant and great hearts face adversity with plenty of spunk. Memorable characters in the literary field and a splendid character on the big screen with the excellent adaptation on film.
A true classic work of pure storytelling in an uncomplicated form with staggering violence and beauty. She is one to add to the hall of fame of heroines of mine from literature.
"The Irishman said,"And is that the man?" He held a candle in his face. The body was wrapped in a white shroud. I said, "That is my father." I stood there looking at him. What a waste! Tom Chaney would pay for this! I would not rest easy until that Louisiana cur was roasting and screaming in hell!" "I hated these ponies for the part they played in my fathers death but now I realized the notion was fanciful, that it was wrong to charge blame to these pretty breasts who knew neither good nor evil but only innocence. I say that of these ponies. I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sky faces?"
"Well, they were a sight to see with all their arms. They were both wearing their belt guns around their outside coats and LaBoeuf cut a splendid figure with his white-handled pistols and Mexican spurs. Rooster was wearing a deerskin jacket over his black suit coat. He carried only one revolver on his belt, an ordinary looking piece with grips of cedar or some reddish wood. On the other side, the right side, he wore a dirk knife. His gun belt was not fancy like LaBoeuf's but only a plain and narrow belt with no cartridge loops. He carried his cartridges in a sack in his pocket. But he also had two more revolvers in saddle scabbards at his thighs. They were big pistols like mine. The two officers also packed saddle guns, Rooster a Winchester repeating rifle and LaBoeuf a gun called a Sharps rifle, a kind I had never seen. My thought was this: Chaney, look out!"
"People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance. They say I love nothing but money and the Presbyterian Church and that is why I never get married. They think everybody is dying to get married. It is true that I love my church and my bank. What is wrong with that?..........A woman with brains and a frank tongue and one sleeve pinned up and an invalid mother to care for is at some disadvantage...."
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