by Sarah Deming
In Rio: I cannot thank Red Sullivan enough for his hospitality. Thank you to Julia and all the other artists, students, and political protesters Sue and I met at the occupation of the Canecão. Thank you to João Bosco and drummer Kiko Freitas for the music and the words.
Thank you to everyone around the world who has ever let me train in their club: the generous Bruce Silverglade at Gleason’s, the beautiful people at Kops Gym in Amsterdam, Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, Crossfit Crown in Rio de Janeiro, Sulem Urbina and Andrews Soto in Phoenix, and my Parisian boxing sisters, Elisabeth Alonso and Annie Bervin, who taught me so much about heart.
Before I knew this material was going to be a novel, I was lucky to work with wonderful freelance editors. Thanks to Chris Greenberg for publishing my earliest coverage in the Huffington Post, and Gautham Nagesh and Anna John for all their excellence at Stiff Jab. Thank you to my friend Eric Klinenberg for introducing me to Carlo Rotella, whom I think is the best living boxing writer. Thank you to Carlo and his wonderful coeditor, Mike Ezra, for including my profile of Claressa Shields in their anthology The Bittersweet Science. And thank you to Wendy Lesser of the Threepenny Review, because I probably would have quit writing long ago without her encouragement.
Thank you to all my colleagues at NBC for the 2012 Olympic boxing broadcast: Rob Dustin, DT Slouffman, Mick Lewis, Scott Katz, Mike Canter, Laila Ali, and BJ Flores. Thank you to Michael Gluckstadt, Kieran Mulvaney, Brad Davis, and the team at Inside HBO Boxing; it was so fun while it lasted. Thank you to Steve Farhood and the crew at Showtime for their support of the women’s game.
I tried to be as accurate as possible in my depiction of women’s boxing, but I took a few liberties for the sake of the story. The tournament locations and qualification pathway I describe are a mash-up between the roads to London and Rio. At seventeen, Gravity would not have been old enough to compete at Rio, where the minimum age for boxers had been raised to nineteen. Women’s amateur bouts used to consist of four two-minute rounds, but I have written all the fight scenes here with three three-minute rounds, which is what women and men amateurs now box.
Thank you to all the good people of USA Boxing Metro, who work to keep the sport of amateur boxing alive: Ray Cuadrado, Sonya Lamonakis, Elise Seignolle, Joe Higgins, Ernesto Rodriguez, and Jeff Friedman. Thank you to Bobby Jiles, Chris Cugliari, Stephen Johnson, Malissa Smith, and anyone who’s ever worked a glove table or held a spit bucket.
This book would not exist without Christopher Myers, who reached out when I was aimless and gave me a target. It was a dream to partner with him on this. My literary agent, Alyssa Henkin, is a joy, and I was very grateful to be edited by Jenny Brown and Michelle Frey, whose belief in the project and careful eyes on the prose helped this to be a better book. Thank you to Sylvia Al-Mateen and the entire team at Knopf.
I am indebted to the chess and pool novels of Walter Tevis, which served as models for how to write about the psychological aspects of competition. The scene where Gravity spars with Ariana Leite is an homage to The Queen’s Gambit.
Thank you to all my great readers: Shahirah Majumdar, Josh Wilson, Pari Aryafar, Karen Naranjo, and Gordon Eriksen. Thank you to Richard Nash for mentorship, Jean Manon for friendship in the trenches, Mia Russo and Janine Amado for a glimpse into the world of ring card girls, the great Daniel Pinkwater for telling me to make enough for the bandits, and my math teacher, Paul Lockhart, for explaining how gravity works.
Thank you to my family. I love you, Mom, Dan, Gram, Donna, Nik, Melsy, Ty, and all the Greenwolds, Cartagenas, Roches, Greenes, Pompers, and Demings.
When I first heard women’s boxing would be in the London Games, I said to my husband, “I feel like I should follow this story.” I had been out of the sport for ten years and didn’t have money, a byline, or a plan.
He said, “Go. I’m buying the ticket.”
Thank you, Ethan Iverson, for being my best reader, partner, and friend. Thank you for always being in my corner and filling my life with music.
Sarah Deming is a New York City Golden Gloves champion and boxing journalist. She is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a MacDowell fellowship and has had her work published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Threepenny Review and by HBO and CNBC. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Ethan, and coaches and mentors young boxers at NYC Cops & Kids—the real-life gym that inspired Gravity’s story.
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