The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (Daunt Books)

I live in Reno, so I was excited to read a book set here, but wow, what a disappointment that just about everything about the location is false. I don't know why she didn't just make up a city because the city in this book is not Reno.

This book did nothing for me. Not sure why it is on the Longlist.

The sport is not boxing either.

It’s hard not to approach this with Grimmish in mind.

David wrote: "It’s hard not to approach this with Grimmish in mind."

I did it, since I've not read Grimmish.

For what it's worth, I really liked the book, though do feel it didn't land its suckerpunch well. I don't know if it's because I read it in one sitting, or if it's just the book, but as the bouts got shorter in page length, it felt a little like most of what had to be said had been said. But it floated like a butterfly, if not always stinging like a bee.

You won the Books threads for today.

Yes, 10 points to Stewart for this round!

Just the point for round David - as mentioned elsewhere the author does not seem to have much concept of how boxing works.

Thanks. Think I'll slip that line into my eventual review.

I really liked this one. I always appreciate a book that delves deeply into exploring its characters and felt this one did it well, although admittedly some sections felt stronger than others (I felt that the Tanya Maw v. Rose Mueller section was feeling a bit tired compared to the others).

I wouldn't be upset to see this on the shortlist as of right now (keeping in mind I've only read two books thus far).

I probably should be honest at the start and admit that I'm not especially interested in boxing.
That said, for me, this was a complete failure on all levels. First I just didn't think it was that well written. The short sentences felt like a writing project undertaken by a reluctant GCSE student who didn't feel like bothering to try to write anything complex or interesting.
At some points it felt like it was a young adult novel desperately trying to escape into the realms of grown up fiction but couldn't get there.
The characters are bland, two dimensional and not really developed at all.
It reads almost like a series of short stories tacked together and though the author tries to convey a sense of place within the dilapidated gym I didn't really feel that succeeded either. Same for the bits featuring Reno. These just disrupted, often for no good reason I could see, any sense of reading momentum I was able to get which wasn't much.

Obviously it is all a matter of personal taste but I thought the concept was exciting but the delivery lacked the required skill and I was really bored for just about the entire book. By the end I simply didn't care what happened.
The best part of the book for me were the acknowledgements which at least were short and to the point.

I'd have to question what about this made the judges think it to be one of their best 13 novels of the year. Maybe it isn't the strongest year for fiction but there must be a least a dozen more worthy novels than this.

I thought this one was just ok. As GY has said, it's certainly not about boxing. It was quite uneven. I thought some of the chapters/matches held up much better than others, and I was much more interested in the things Bullwinkel had to say about what happened to the 8 teenagers later in their lives than I was about the matches in the present or about their back stories. And I disliked the ending. Having said that, I am not sorry to have read it, and I would not have read it if not for its longlisting, so there is that.

I was so excited about this book that it shot to the top of my TBR, but I wound up DNF'ing just past half way. I think it was well-executed, but the overall impression of drabness was so overwhelming, I just didn't want to be there. Matter of taste, I suppose. I thought Bullwinkel did a great job putting me in the heads of each character, and I was all in for the first girl/chapter, but that was enough for me. The first chapter was an excellent short story, but that was all I needed from this book.

I might be in the minority here, but I loved this one! My review:

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
finished 7/31/24 ; 4.5/5 ; book 43/66

Booker Prize 2024: 2/13

What a firecracker of a book. Choosing to follow the participants of a boxing matches, while focusing little on the sport itself and instead focusing on the inner lives and minds of the participants, while ALSO having no direct first person inner monologue is a fascinating choice, and a gamble that ultimately paid off. The narrator is standing at a middle distance between the girls, perhaps in the stands watching the matches. The narrator being inside the minds of the girls while also seeming to not identify with any of their inner workings, to me, heightened the animalistic tension between the matchups.

Where this book loses its half star is its ending, which I felt was weak and seemed rushed. The championship round is instead narrated by a new character, and only lasts a few pages, which made the character profiles that were built up throughout the novel prior feel lacking in payoff. That coupled with the last few pages?- I think it spiraled out of control just a tad.

Overall, though, LOVED it.

No minority at all, Garrett. 4/5 for me.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This one really didn't work for me, and towards the end there were a lot of things that either annoyed me or seemed very silly.

I’ve read the first chapter, and the whole way through I was trying pinpoint what the style reminded me of - I think it’s the voice over/narration style of Wes Anderson movies. Anyone else see this or is there something else style-wise it reminds anyone of?

Did not love it; did not hate it. The author definitely does not know how boxing is scored but I did enjoy the development of the young women. The ending, though, was ridiculous, completely ridiculous.

I felt Headshot was ok, but certainly not a standout.

My main issue is that the boxers did not feel 'different' enough from each other. I get that they may have a range of similar traits to have discovered, enjoyed and persevered with boxing, but there was something too 'same, same' about some of their views, outlooks, etc. for my liking.

I was unconvinced she really followed through on the boxers - to the extent they were distinctive. I think it’s Rachel who recalls the fights as a series of images and her first chapter is based heavily around this. But in the next fight I cannot recall it being a feature at all.

Just to clarify on my not boxing comment as we originally discussed in the post leak pre longlist thread.

Some examples: literally no mention of weight limits/classes (which are integral to the way competitions work); junior girls going eight rounds (I think that would get you closed down pretty quickly by the medical authorities and lead to lots of future lawsuits– three would be more normal); no mention of TKOs or stoppages (and this takes away some of the hazard of the sport – that with one punch or flurry a fight can end, even if one boxer is hopelessly outclassed); points announced at the end of each round so the boxers know who is ahead (again very different to the usual scenes where both boxers are convinced they won); bouts stopping if someone has won more than half the rounds (as without any mechanism to stop the fight they have lost); extra round if a tie (again the medical implications are obvious and ignored).

Now there is a strong fictional element to the set up – but the lack of fidelity for me rather took me out of the experience of the book as I started to think of the bouts as fencing-with-fists rather than boxing. I would contrast the novel here with a Kathryn Scanlon’s brilliant Gordon Burn Prize winning “Kick The Latch” – another notionally sport based reflective novel by the very same UK publisher, but one dripping with authenticity.

Just finished this one and while I enjoyed it, it is my least favourite of the three I've read. (I would be ecstatic for this to be the worst book on the longlist, as that would mean that I've at the very least enjoyed every book.)

I don't know anything about boxing so I can't comment on the authenticity of its representation, but I wasn't paying attention to the boxing. Instead, my attention was on the psyche of the characters - which I think was generally very well done, though perhaps inconsistent.

While interesting, I think that the structure of the book makes its weaknesses (for me) apparent.

During the first section of the book (the first round of the tournament, occupying nearly 75% of the book), I felt like I was reading short stories (and they were good short stories) but it felt like I was reading four attempts at writing the same concept and as a result, I found myself comparing the bouts against one another in terms of quality of writing which meant that I found some bouts far more enjoyable than others - and, maybe to its detriment, I found the opening section very strong, which meant that the next three were slightly disappointing (though still good!) by comparison.

Only after the first round of the tournament is concluded do we get to see the characters from the previous bouts begin to interact - and the losers drop out of the book (almost) entirely (although this is acknowledged by the author, in writing the section about the characters remaining present and affecting their future lives etc.).

And we are left with only 25% of the book for the semi-finals and finals which feels maybe not rushed, but missing something and, as others mentioned, the ending felt...slightly wrong? though for me, not because of any rules reasoning, but rather because it wasn't quite as definitive as I was maybe expecting.

I think my complaints are more re: form than they are the actual writing, which I did enjoy.

Dylan, you hit on a lot of the things in your review that you personally didn't like, that I really liked about the book.

I thought the disappearance of the losers almost entirely from the story after they were eliminated was a harshly honest representation of sports tournaments, especially for young people- no one remembers the losers (that fact in itself is not good nor bad, simply a brutally real neutral space), and perhaps being forgotten is what some of these "losers" yearn for?

I agree that the ending felt "incomplete," though I really only fell off at the last chapter. I thought the "night" chapters and the semi-finals were brilliantly done: the absolutely animal and primal nature of this sport is really focused on here and I quite enjoyed it. :)

I haven’t finished this one yet, but I’m getting close. I’m near the end of the Tanya/Rose match, so I can’t yet comment on the ending. So far, I’m intrigued by the narrative structure and how the close 3rd-person perspective vacillates so seamlessly between the two girls in a match. I’m listening to this one as an audiobook, and this narrative structure works well in that format. On the other hand, the short choppy sentences are getting very tedious in the audio format. I imagine the same would be true in print.

One aspect of this book I’m particularly enjoying is how the different girls respond to a high-pressure athletic contest. I’m fairly athletic myself, and I like to put myself through difficult physical challenges. It’s interesting to see what goes through my mind (and the mind games I have to play with myself) to push myself through something that’s physically difficult and very uncomfortable in the moment. In this book, we get to see these different girls respond to a physical challenge in the moment, and there are a broad range of responses, some useful and others unhelpful. This glimpse into the minds of these young athletes is what has been holding my interest in this book. I’m less interested in the backstories, setting, specific boxing rules, etc.

Garrett wrote: "Dylan, you hit on a lot of the things in your review that you personally didn't like, that I really liked about the book."

I'm really glad you enjoyed the elements that didn't necessarily work for me.

I would agree that some "losers" yearn to be forgotten, that their failure is erased from memory, and I think the book does a good job representing this, including the ways they justify this thinking - the end of the second match, for example, does this well, as do the future passages reflecting on their youth.

I think it's a well-written book that was just missing something for me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Also, I think the fact that we can offer differing opinions is to the book's merit. That Headshot can encourage discussion is a desirable quality for any book nominated for a prize.

Gwendolyn wrote: "I’m intrigued by the narrative structure and how the close 3rd-person perspective vacillates so seamlessly between the two girls in a match. [...] On the other hand, the short choppy sentences are getting very tedious in the audio format. "

I, too, was impressed by the seamless transition between close 3rd-person perspective. I think this was a very effective way to present the psychologies of the characters.

While I didn't love the short, choppy sentences, I thought they represented the fights well. What I think detracted from my experience was the sometimes too-frequent transition between perspectives. Many are a single paragraph (maybe two, three sentences) long - and this, I feel was somewhat destabilizing. I preferred the slightly longer perspectives, where I was able to sink into the character a little bit more.

I think this might be a Western Lane for me - which is to say, a book that I didn't love upon reading it (though I do think I enjoyed Headshot more than Western Lane), but which grew in estimation as I got further away and was better able to process. Maybe it's something about sports? ;)

Rita Bulwinkel and her book featured recently on one of the best literary podcasts, Beyond the Zero.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1N33...

The podcaster has previously featured Michael Winkler and Grimmish so I wouldn’t be surprised if the comparison between the two comes up

As many of you may know the author did compete as a girl to a national/international level at Water Polo. And it’s this she has drawn in for much of the book.

She has said elsewhere that this Olympics will be the last where players she competed with and against would be in the US Olympic team (which sadly has just lost the bronze medal match. ….. by coincidence I was at the men’s semi final yesterday which the USA also lost).

This is from a 2018 interview as she was planning this novel but you can see a lot of the ideas coming out in this book and also ironically an implicit comment on how insular the world of literary fiction can be - which I think nicely extends to our debates over the Booker

The quote

Part of what I wanted to write about in this novel I’m working on is this aspect that youth sports, and especially youth women sports, are incredibly small, insular communities. And that I was raised in this community, where I, from a young age, knew where I was ranked nationally, from this very young age at this specific thing, and I knew every other girl in the country and where they lived and what position they played and how they were ranked. And there were these transnational rivalries between teams, between specific players — the stories people would tell about so-and-so in Florida and the way these youth national tournaments produced a rich and vivid culture. As a child, it felt to me, the apex of civilization. And now, with the reflection of adulthood, seems to me totally and completely insane because literally no one in the world cares about women’s water polo.

I’ve become interested in how, in my life, in the ways people become seduced into cults, but it’s way easier when you’re a child, where you build up meaning and worlds for yourself. And one can make this argument with the current literary world. It doesn’t happen just in youth sportsmanship situations.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "As many of you may know the author did compete as a girl to a national/international level at Water Polo. And it’s this she has drawn in for much of the book.

She has said elsewhere that this Oly..."

Interesting how Bulwinkle drew on her experience with water polo for this book. That makes sense to me. The parts of the book that focus on the mental gymnastics of the athletes’ minds rang true to me.

In her Booker interview she says

“My hope is that boxers, and lovers of boxing, will find authenticity in this book, but that also anyone who has ever been gripped by an obsessive drive to accomplish something, and to be seen at a time when they felt otherwise invisible, will find themselves in these pages. “

I suspect the second half is a lot more likely than the first - the defence for me encapsulates what worked well and what did not.

Suzanne wrote: "I’ve read the first chapter, and the whole way through I was trying pinpoint what the style reminded me of - I think it’s the voice over/narration style of Wes Anderson movies. Anyone else see this..."

Good shoutout, I completely see the similarity with the narration style of Wes Anderson movies, like Alec Baldwin's narration in The Royal Tenenbaums. In a way this novel does feel like the opening exposition narration in a movie that just never ends. It reads like a bunch of character sketches and vignettes.

Overall, I liked this more than most of you based on the comments. I admire the author for trying to do something new, especially in her first novel. I do feel like this structure and the lack of dialogue kind of boxed herself in (pun intended). While we learn just about everything possible about these boxers, the lack of dialogue and repetitive structure resulted in them not feeling very distinct to me.

I'm curious to see what Bullwinkel does next. I think she displays a lot of talent. I'd like to see what she could do in a less confining narrative structure.

I liked it a lot - a strong start to my 2024 booker journey

I think right now, this one is coming in last on my list, either this one or Wild Houses. We all have such different tastes for such a wide variety of reasons. I can respect any of the books even if I don't care for them. And I respect all the work the authors put into them. I find the variety in our lists very interesting.

https://youtu.be/ERBYcC7FgE4?si=23aCi...

I quite enjoyed this first time round - mainly I think as I liked the concept of the novel and the use if the tournament bracket to anchor the story allowing the omniscient narrator to roam into the past and future.

But it really does not yield much at all on a re-read - perhaps the least of any of the books.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I quite enjoyed this first time round - mainly I think as I liked the concept of the novel and the use if the tournament bracket to anchor the story allowing the omniscient narrator to roam into th..."

I’m not surprised to hear this. I put this one even below Wild Houses on my list. That said, I also quite enjoyed it, so if this is my bottom of the longlist, then it’s a pretty good longlist.

I thought this was a fun read. No idea what it is doing on the longlist, but I thought it was different, and that focussing on the world of a small sport that doesn't matter to almost anyone was well done. The driving forever to stay in terrible hotels, receive at best a poorly made plastic trophy and damage the end of your life because of the young abuse of your body. The incredible determination of girls pushed into it by their family, or ignored by their family.

Yes, I thought all of that was well done. But unfortunately there is not much she wants to say, or a real structure to the book, so it just dribbles out during the last quarter.

Lascosas wrote: "I thought this was a fun read. No idea what it is doing on the longlist, but I thought it was different, and that focussing on the world of a small sport that doesn't matter to almost anyone was we..."

I agree. What was the author trying to say? I couldn’t really tell.

It’s about trauma and how sport can ease the pain or exacerbate it, thus using boxing as a complex metaphor

Of all the books this is probably the one with the most and widest ranging author interviews (some of the authors on the list - Everett, Michaels and Powers for example are pretty reluctant when it comes to interviews), other books have not been out so long.

So there is lots of background to read up on.

Lascosas has I think got close to what she was aiming at.

Her own background is in water polo where she completed I think almost to national team level when young - she has said this Olympics was the last when people she competed against as a teenager were in the US team. In her Booker interviewer she says she obsessively competed in any sport she could find when young.

The choice of boxing was really three fold: the intense physical nature of training and competition (water polo as an aside is also a very physical and combative sport), the fact it’s an individual sport (she rejected water polo and other team sports as they did not fit the idea of pen portraits of individuals), the theatrical/choreographed nature of the bouts (the idea of the unspoken dialogue was critical to her concept of the book).

Worth dating as well that the book goes beyond boxing as an obsessive game which form their own importance - the references to hand clapping games are particularly important but even chubby bunnies and the ring throwing (that leads to the pool death) are very deliberate inclusions in the novel.

Of all the books this is probably the one with the most and widest ranging author interviews (some of the authors on the list - Everett, Michaels and Powers for example are pretty reluctant when it comes to interviews), other books have not been out so long.

So there is lots of background to read up on.

Lascosas has I think got close to what she was aiming at.

Her own background is in water polo where she completed I think almost to national team level when young - she has said this Olympics was the last when people she competed against as a teenager were in the US team. In her Booker interviewer she says she obsessively competed in any sport she could find when young.

The choice of boxing was really three fold: the intense physical nature of training and competition (water polo as an aside is also a very physical and combative sport), the fact it’s an individual sport (she rejected water polo and other team sports as they did not fit the idea of pen portraits of individuals), the theatrical/choreographed nature of the bouts (the idea of the unspoken dialogue was critical to her concept of the book).

She also talks a lot about the idea of obsessing on something and building up something as all important and all encompassing which has almost no import to others.

And interestingly extends it to literary fiction writing.

When I read comments like “But I do think that in order for each of these characters to compete at the level they’re competing at, they have to build meaning out of their wins that doesn’t actually exist. They have to make the events more meaningful than society thinks they are”

Though I think of this group and our (my) obsession with literary prizes.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "She also talks a lot about the idea of obsessing on something and building up something as all important and all encompassing which has almost no import to others.

And interestingly extends it to..."

Interesting to extend the point to our obsession with literary fiction and literary prizes. Maybe there’s something inherent in being a human to choose something (or for some people, several things) to obsess over, taking it well beyond the general, average interest level. Some inherent drive to differentiate, to compete, and to win (whatever that might mean for the given obsession).

You articulated it much better than me but yes.

I suspect that one of the reasons that element didn't move me was that I read a lot of sports journalism (and sporting biographies/ghosted autobiographies) as a teenager, so all the tropes seemed very familiar. What really grated on me was the repeated usage of the same phrases, particularly the weird-hat philosophy, but cliched descriptions are also very common in sports journalism...

The most interesting thing about this book was how the author has the character with whom we initially bond lose the first match. It reinforces the criticism the author seems to have for the exaggerated value adults have placed on amateur sports and overall use it has for the youthful participants. This was not enough for me to rank it higher, but it was an interesting approach.

I was not expecting much after what others had to say and the low overall rating. but having read the first bout, I am really impressed! I'll see if it gets old quickly, but as of now, headshot is a novel I actively enjoy.

really been enjoying her short stories collection lately & would recommend: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...