One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing [Paperback]

Katherine Dunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

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.

Editorial Reviews

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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Featured in the Los Angeles Times Book Review's "Summer Books, Hot Type, 60 Picks for Best Reads of the Summer"

"Dunn unveils insight that exceeds the merely perfunctory."  —Publishers Weekly

"An exciting new addition to boxing literature. [Dunn's] prose is brilliant, and in a game so fully immersed in danger and utmost peril, the most striking thing is . . . [her]humanity."  —Thom Jones, National Book Award finalist, The Pugilist at Rest

"One of our finest novelists is also, hands-down, the best boxing journalist working today."  —Lucius Shepard, Nebula and Hugo Award–winning science fiction writer and boxing journalist

"Ms. Dunn's collection is already my candidate for boxing book of the year. This one belongs on the top shelf alongside Heinz's Once They Heard the Cheers and McIlvanney's The Hardest Game."  —Peter Ehrmann, CBZ Newswire, CyberBoxingZone

"Collects the best and most accessible of [Dunn's] published essays, which vibrantly capture the culture, characters, and atmosphere of the sport [of boxing]."  —The Portland Mercury

"Katherine Dunn understands the sport instinctively and writes about it intuitively in this rich collection of her work. Not to coin a cliche, One Ring Circus is a 'Knockout'!"  —Bert Randolph Sugar, writer and historian, Boxing Hall of Fame

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Schaffner Press, Inc. (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980139422
• ISBN-13: 978-0980139426
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #862,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Writer on Boxing, May 15, 2009

By 

Rose (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing (Paperback)

Katherine Dunn is a boxer's writer. Unlike many literary types who pursue the sport as a overwrought metaphor, titillation, or slumming with the lower classes, Dunn truly understands and appreciates boxing. She has spent decades learning the sport, from the coaches to the fighters themselves. She sees the gentleness that can exist behind the gloves, the contractions of the ring, and the uncertainty of a sport that remains entrenched in another time. To have a writer of her skill translate such a sport is a rare experience.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Anthology, May 16, 2009

By 

R. Sohi - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing (Paperback)

This is an anthology of novelist, Katherine Dunn's, thoughtful musings on the sweet science written over the last twenty-five or so years. You won't find articles about Oscar De La Hoya, Manny Pacquiao or any of the other recent superstars of the sport (the exception being an insightful essay on Mike Tyson). With mixed results Dunn instead casts her gaze on the journeymen who are the foundation of the sport, the great fights from the golden era of the 1980s, the relatively unsuccessful struggle women boxers have had to be seen as something more than a sideshow and the lessons boxers gain from their years of dedication to their craft.

Dunn's essays demonstrate her knowledge of the sport and deep respect for it's practitioners. What's most impressive is her independence of thought as she reflects on events in the history of the sport during the time she's been an observer. For instance, the aforementioned article on Tyson provides a useful balance to the conventional view that he is a madman by digging beneath the surface and offering some explanation (not defense) of his conduct in the "bite fight," when he twice bit Evander Holyfield's ears.

"One Ring Circus" is not in the same league as Ralph Wiley's "Serenity" or Carlo Rotella's "Cut Time" - books that surpass this one, are deeper, more poignant for the way in which they explore how hardship reshapes character. It's strength is in its coverage of actual fights, where it is as good, if not better, than the work of Thomas Hauser, John Schulian or Hugh McIlvanney, all of whom are considered among the best boxing reporters.

Anyone who loves boxing should read it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars entertaining even for the non-boxing fan, April 27, 2009

By 

ignacio f. (Aloha OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing (Paperback)

These writings on boxing amuse and divert not just in their coverage of the quirks of personality of this or that famous or forgotten fighter but offer as well sometimes controversial insights about violence in the human animal as this manifests itself in the USA and, well, everywhere. Lots of fun here even for the non-sports fan.