Boxer Handsome by Anna Whitwham

Boxer Handsome by Anna Whitwham
Bold, ballsy and blood-spattered, a fierce
debut about boxer boys in the East End of
London, from a major new talent.
Boxing runs in Bobby’s blood. His Irish dad was a
boxer. So was his Jewish grandfather. Yanked up
by their collars at Clapton Bow Boys Club, taught
how to box and stay out of trouble. So Bobby
knows he shouldn’t be messing in street brawls a
week before his big fight with Connor ‘the Gypsy
Boy’, an Irish traveller from around the way.
They’re fighting over Theresa: a traveller girl
with Connor’s name all over her. But Bobby’s
handsome, like his dad; boxer handsome. For
Bobby, the ring is everywhere and he can’t afford
to lose.
"A genuinely impressive debut. Boxer Handsome does
everything great fiction should, offering up characters
who stay with the reader long after the end of the book,
giving an almost filmic vision of places and people, and
revealing a world that most people will never even think
about. If you can't see what it is that people need from
boxing, or why it somehow persists into the 21st
century, then read this." Bella Bathurst, Guardian
"This story is just as much about territory and escaping
who you are, as it is about boxing. Full of sober realism
and broken dreams, she's got the sort of narrative that
would make Shane Meadows sit up." Fiona Wilson, The
Times
Anna Whitwham was born in 1981 in London, where she still lives. She has studied Drama
and English at University of California, Los Angeles and Queens University, Belfast. She is
currently completing her Creative Writing PhD with the Poet Laureate Andrew M otion at Royal
Holloway, where she also lectures. Boxer Handsome is her first novel.