I don’t remember ever having watched a women’s boxing competition before I began reading Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot. I simply had no interest in the sport, and would almost certainly not have read this one had it not been part of the 2024 Booker Prize longlist. And I would have missed out on a really good book for that reason.
Rather than get bogged down in the mechanics of the sport and this particular tournament, Bullwinkel chooses to go inside the heads of the eight young women competing in Reno to be “the best in the world at something.” How the girls, all of them between fifteen and eighteen years old, got it into their heads that winning a competition in Reno that only they, a handful of family members, their coaches, the paid judges, and the gym owner even know about is another story…but they all believe it. And winning it is the most important thing in their lives – until all of a sudden it isn’t.
The tournament begins with eight competitors, four matches on the first day leaving four winners to move on to the semi-final bouts the next morning. The second day’s first two matches determine which two girls will fight for the tournament championship later in the day. Headshot presents chapter-like segments covering each of the seven, total, fights.
Bullwinkel sets the novel’s overall tone early in the first match:
“This imagined winning in front of people who will never see her win, even if she does win, is symptomatic of the fact that Artemis Victor, like Andi Taylor, is more than anything, delusional. The desired audiences will never see them win. Even if they were to go and box professionally, hit some women in bikinis in the basement of a casino in Las Vegas, they wouldn’t impress the people who they encounter in their lives outside of boxing. They would only impress each other, other women who are trying to touch someone with their fists.”
In each of the first four matches, the reader learns who these girls are, where they come from, and the whys and hows that explain their presence in Reno, Nevada to pay so dearly for the chance to go home with a cheap little plastic trophy – along with the right to think of themselves as “the best in the world at something.” Readers are made privy to the innermost thoughts of the eight competitors, their doubts, jealousies, resentments, goals, and hopes. Headshot is very much a character-driven novel, one that happens to take place almost entirely inside a shabby gym’s shabby boxing ring.
The girls, as different as they may look to outsiders and even to each other, are really more alike than they are different. They are all emotionally fragile and for them boxing is their best chance of being “seen” by their peers and family. They just want others to acknowledge that they are real and valuable people. Only one of them can leave Reno feeling that she’s accomplished what they all come there hoping to achieve, but every single one of them is going to learn something important about herself while she’s there.
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Personal Ratings of 2024 Booker Prize Nominees:
The Safekeep – Yael Van Der Wouden – 5.0 stars
James – Percival Everett – 4.5 stars
Headshot – Rita Bullwinkel – 3.5 stars
Wild Houses – Colin Barrett – 3.0 stars
This Strange Eventful History – Claire Messoud – 2.5 stars
Orbital – Samantha Harvey – 2.0 stars
