Headshot

Bullwinkel’s novel is part of the subgenre of sports fiction focused on boxing. Though this subgenre only emerged in the 20th century, boxing has been portrayed as far back as Greek and Roman antiquity: Homer depicts organized fist-fighting contests in the Iliad and Virgil describes a boxing match that Aeneas arranges for his father’s funeral games in the fifth book of the Aeneid.

More recently, the popularity of boxing as a public entertainment drove an increase in writing about the culture of boxing. Joyce Carol Oates’s essay collection On Boxing (1987) highlights the appeal of pugilism, describing her as a lifelong boxing fan. On the other hand, biographies such as A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith (2015) by Donald McRae contrast public life and private life, revealing the darker side of contact sports. 

Boxing’s focus on conflict allows authors to show protagonists overcoming personal challenges in the ring, creating parallels between physical and emotional battles. Early examples of boxing fiction include Jack London’s 1909 short story “A Piece of Steak” and Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story, “Fifty Grand.” Both stories depict their boxing protagonists as tragic heroes who lose, though the implications of their losses differ. Mid-20th century novels like The Professional (1958) by W. C. Heinz and Fat City (1969) by Leonard Gardner juxtapose their characters’ triumphs in the boxing ring with the social conditions that challenge them in their daily lives.

Bullwinkel’s novel subverts a number of boxing fiction tropes through its subject matter and structure. Few boxing books revolve around the experience of women who step into the ring. Bullwinkel devotes Headshot to the lives of teen girls, making the matches they fight tangential to the real drama of their lives: the historical past and the emotional baggage of their futures. The structure of the novel reflects the format of boxing tournaments; characters’ performance in the ring reveals their personalities. Unlike earlier works of boxing fiction, Headshot weaves its characters’ interior lives into matches, moving away from the antagonist-protagonist model of most boxing stories to make every boxer a protagonist unto herself.