Headshot is a relatively recent novel by Rita Bullwinkel, and is everything I wanted when I started my sad little one person book club - something right outside my usual experiences, and all the more rewarding for it.
It only took seconds to choose this one when I saw it at the local bookshop at the start of last month, because it sounded fucking awesome. It's set at a boxing tournament for teenage girls, each chapter tells the story of one bout in the competition, and the stories of the girls who like to bash each other in the head.
It's such a tight structure, but the story goes to some big places, as these strange and wonderful girls think about the roads that have led them to this boxing ring, in this point of time, and their myriad futures that spill out from the Reno fights. There is almost no dialogue, although the one line where somebody gets called a fucking idiot is both the funniest and meanest thing I've read in ages.
The only men are the pale and sad idiots who judge it or are supporting their daughters. The fighters are not doing it for them, they're doing it for themselves. They are also incredibly weird and contradictory and arrogant and unknowable in the way teenage girls really can be. There is a use of a racoon-skin hat that is deeply admirable and justifiable - if everyone is wondering about that crazy hat, they're not noticing what you are really doing.
It's an absolute uppercut of a book, and I can not recommend it highly enough. Get in the ring. You won't regret it.
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