Rita Bullwinkel’s virtuosic novel, Headshot, published in 2024, is an electric and muscular consideration of eight young women, the best female boxers in the country under the age of 18, who compete in the two-day Daughters of America tournament in Reno at some point in the future, during this century. Each suspenseful chapter, told with godlike omniscience, focuses on a single bout, in which two teenagers circle each other, both physically and mentally, until one is knocked out, until we arrive at the last two fighters—and finally, the tournament champion. With bold yet graceful narrative moves, Bullwinkel reveals not only the girls’ complex interiorities—their fears, their traumas, their feelings, and their beliefs—but also the fates of their future selves as older women. While the characters sometimes perceive themselves in the act of fighting as killers, the matches come to feel like surprising collaborations between girls who initially seem to have nothing in common but their dedication and boxing skills. This is a brilliant sports novel as well as a fluid series of portraits of young women. It may very well be one of the most beautiful novels you read this year.
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