Dan's Book Review: A Clenched Fist

By Jim Marquardt

Despite its flaws, Peter Wood's A Clenched Fist, his chronicle of life in and around the boxing ring is the kind of tough, honest memoir that has the reader rooting for the writer. We may look down on boxing as a savage blight on our culture, but in the bleak world of the underclass, it can be a refuge, a goal and a chance for young men who otherwise are destined for a life of crime and violence, to gain esteem.

Here's an opportunity to understand their character, why they become boxers, and their emotions as they enter the ring. More importantly, it depicts the kind of young men that fall through the gaps in society, because the ranks are filled with poor, uneducated, troubled adolescents from broken homes.

An English teacher at high school in White Plains and coach of a boxing program funded by a drug abuse organization, Wood himself was a New York Golden Gloves middleweight finalist. Before he quit, he amassed a record of 34 wins, 20 by knockouts, and only one loss. Wood sees himself in his young apprentices, and along the way reveals his own dreams and failures, and finally comes to terms with his life. He has no illusions about fighting. When he briefly considers getting back into the game, he thinks, "Somehow diving back into the mud of boxing, I'm like a fish that had a long time ago hopped out of the sea to evolve into a higher form, only to splash back in."

He keeps trying to explain the lure of boxing, yet admits, "It's scary. Boxing is fighting disguised as sport, anger disguised as play." He strives to train a group of four blacks, four Latinos and four white boys, all carrying heavy emotional baggage. But says, "The antagonistic traits - aggressiveness, restlessness, rebelliousness and hostility - that brand a kid a menace to society are also the traits of a brilliant fighter. In boxing craziness is genius."

Much of the memoir revolves around two of his most promising fighters, Tyrone Crooks and Dennys Lozada, both in their late teens. "Tragedy lies dormant in Tyrone like a tumor," says Wood. Tyrone is the archetype of the disaffected black youngster who sees "honkeys" as the enemy, who is one day promising to train hard to hone his natural skills and another day is keying scratches into Wood's car. Wood tries every approach to turn him in the right direction - flattering, cajoling, reprimanding - to no apparent avail. In the ring the swaggering, gifted athlete is simply frightened.

As Crooks fades, along comes Lozada, a young Puerto Rican with the quickness and instincts to become a winner. Again, Wood invests huge amounts of worry, psychology and training to mold him into a confident, skillful boxer. Lozada is so scarred by his turbulent upbringing that he is afraid to succeed and keeps putting road blocks in his own path. He's too tired, or too sick, or too depressed. In the end, though, he reaches his dream.

At the same time that he is describing his travails in the hot, smelly gym, Wood occasionally takes us into his school where he has become enamored of another teacher, Sing Sing Tu. A pompous Harvard graduate who makes Wood feel deficient and inarticulate also pursues her. Though they hold your attention, these interludes are not as interesting and don't ring true. They come across as if someone advised Wood that his story needed a love interest. And while the staccato dialogue with his boxing novices is gutsy and real, the discourse around the romance is stilted.

Wood's discussions with his high school class on the pros and cons of boxing also have a somewhat manufactured tone. If the opinions of his students are accurately reported, he had a class of brilliant debaters.

The memoir is written in the form of a diary, which may have been how he initially recorded his experiences, but there was no reason to carry that format into the book version. The dating adds nothing, and a more traditional narrative might have given Wood more flexibility in telling his story. Despite the diary format, Wood builds considerable tension as he recounts his struggles to instill winning attitudes in the young men in his charge. His descriptions of Lozada's bouts on his way to the Golden Gloves Championship are vivid without being gory, and leave you breathless. Describing one fearsome opponent, Fatty Lanford, Wood writes, "I wonder what cup of mud Fatty crawled out of......his wide nostrils, bulging buttocks and thick neck look pre-historic - it's like he was scraped off a cave wall."

Even with its warts and flaws, A Clenched Fist is a gripping, insightful look into this much maligned sport.

Back to Contents