Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

In the ring of contemporary literature, Rita Bullwinkel’s “Headshot” comes out swinging. This electrifying debut novel, longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, delivers a one-two punch of raw intensity and lyrical prose that’ll leave you breathless. Set over two sweltering days at a youth boxing tournament in Reno, Nevada, “Headshot” follows eight teenage girl boxers as they duke it out for the title of best in the nation. But make no mistake—this ain’t your grandpa’s boxing story.

Bullwinkel, whose 2018 story collection “Belly Up” marked her as a talent to watch, has crafted something truly unique here. Part sports drama, part fever dream, Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel uses the brutal intimacy of the boxing ring to explore deeper questions about girlhood, physicality, and the intoxicating allure of violence. It’s a book that’ll make you flinch, laugh, and maybe want to lace up a pair of gloves yourself.

Round 1: Setting the Stage

From the moment we step into Bob’s Boxing Palace (a name that practically drips with irony), Bullwinkel immerses us in the strange, liminal world of competitive boxing. The air is thick with sweat and desperation. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. And eight young women prepare to beat the living daylights out of each other.

The structure is genius—a series of face-offs that mirror the tournament bracket. Each chapter pits two fighters against each other, not just physically but psychologically. We dive deep into their minds, their motivations, their secret fears and desires. It’s intimate and uncomfortable in the best possible way.

Bullwinkel’s prose crackles with energy. She has a gift for sensory details that bring the world of amateur boxing to vivid life. You can practically smell the resin on the mat, taste the metallic tang of blood in the air. Her descriptions of the fights themselves are visceral and poetic, finding beauty in the brutal dance of two bodies in motion.

Round 2: Meet the Fighters

Our cast of characters is a diverse and compelling bunch. There’s Artemis Victor, the legacy fighter with something to prove. Andi Taylor, haunted by a tragic poolside accident. Rachel Doricko, with her strange hats and even stranger fighting style. Each girl feels fully realized, with hopes and quirks and deep-seated traumas that inform their approach to boxing.

I found myself particularly drawn to Rose Mueller, the devout Catholic girl from Dallas who finds ecstasy in violence. Her internal struggle between faith and physicality is beautifully rendered. And then there’s Iggy Lang, the scrappy underdog with the distinctive purple birthmark. Her rivalry with her cousin Izzy provides some of the book’s most emotionally charged moments.

Bullwinkel excels at capturing the particular intensity of teenage girlhood. These characters exist in that liminal space between child and adult, their bodies changing in ways they can’t fully control. Boxing becomes a way to claim ownership over those bodies, to test their limits and potential.

Round 3: More Than Just a Sport

While the novel is ostensibly about boxing, Bullwinkel uses the sport as a lens to explore deeper themes. There’s a fascinating tension between violence and intimacy that runs throughout the book. The boxers’ bodies collide in ways that are both brutal and oddly tender. It’s a physical closeness that borders on the erotic, though never quite crosses that line.

The novel also grapples with questions of identity and self-definition. For many of these girls, boxing is a way to carve out a space for themselves in a world that often tries to confine them. It’s a rebellion against societal expectations, a way to access a kind of power traditionally denied to young women.

Bullwinkel doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of competitive sports, either. There’s a undercurrent of exploitation running through the novel, with sleazy coaches and questionable organizations profiting off these young fighters. It’s a sobering reminder of the often-grim realities behind our feel-good sports narratives.

Round 4: A Distinctive Voice

One of the most striking things about “Headshot” is Rita Bullwinkel’s utterly unique prose style. Her sentences have a rhythmic, almost hypnotic quality that mimics the ebb and flow of a boxing match. She’s not afraid to experiment with form, either. Stream-of-consciousness passages bleed into tightly focused descriptions of physical action. It’s disorienting at times, but always exhilarating.

There’s a surreal, almost hallucinatory quality to much of the writing. Reality blurs at the edges, especially during the most intense moments of the fights. Are we in the characters’ heads, or is something stranger at play? Bullwinkel keeps us deliciously off-balance throughout.

I was particularly struck by a passage where one character imagines the worlds built by each boxer as floating discs above the ring. It’s the kind of startling, original image that lingers long after you’ve finished reading.

Round 5: Breaking New Ground

“Headshot” feels genuinely fresh and exciting in a literary landscape that can sometimes feel a bit stale. While there have been plenty of boxing novels over the years (shout out to Leonard Gardner’s “Fat City” or F.X. Toole’s “Rope Burns”), I can’t think of anything quite like this.

The focus on female fighters is refreshing and long overdue. Bullwinkel captures the unique challenges faced by women in a traditionally masculine sport without ever feeling preachy or didactic. These girls aren’t just “female boxers” – they’re complex, fully-realized characters who happen to box.

The novel’s structure, too, feels innovative. By focusing so tightly on this two-day tournament, Bullwinkel creates a pressure-cooker environment where tensions simmer and eventually boil over. It’s a masterclass in pacing and building suspense.

Round 6: Not Without Flaws

For all its strengths, Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel isn’t a perfect knockout. The large cast of characters, while mostly well-drawn, can be a bit overwhelming at times. I occasionally found myself flipping back to remember who was who, especially in the early chapters.

The novel’s more experimental passages, while often brilliant, occasionally veer into territory that feels a bit too abstract. There were moments where I longed for a slightly firmer grounding in reality.

And while the tournament structure is generally effective, it does mean that some potentially interesting storylines get cut short when a character is eliminated. I found myself wishing we could follow certain fighters beyond their losses.

Round 7: The Final Bell

These minor quibbles aside, “Headshot” announces Rita Bullwinkel as a major new voice in contemporary fiction. It’s a bold, audacious novel that takes big swings and, more often than not, connects. The Booker Prize longlisting feels well-deserved – this is exactly the kind of boundary-pushing work that award was made to recognize.

What lingers most for me is the raw physicality of the book. In an increasingly digital world, “Headshot” is a vivid reminder of what it means to live in a body, to push that body to its limits. It captures the pain, the exhilaration, and the strange intimacy of physical competition in a way I’ve rarely encountered in fiction.

I finished the book feeling exhilarated and a little bit bruised, like I’d just gone ten rounds myself. It’s the kind of novel that makes you see the world a little differently. You might find yourself paying closer attention to the way bodies move through space, or reconsidering your assumptions about strength and vulnerability.

Round 8: The Scorecard

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel is not an easy read, but it’s an immensely rewarding one. Bullwinkel demands your full attention, but she repays it with prose that crackles and characters that will linger in your mind long after the final page. It’s a novel that feels important—not in a self-serious, “literary fiction” way, but in the way it pushes the boundaries of what fiction can do.

If you loved the raw energy of “The Fits” or the surreal girlhood of “Yellowjackets,” you’ll find a lot to appreciate here. Fans of more experimental literary fiction like Ottessa Moshfegh or Carmen Maria Machado should definitely give it a shot. And of course, anyone with an interest in boxing or sports fiction in general will find plenty to chew on.

In the end, “Headshot” is a knockout debut that announces Rita Bullwinkel as a formidable new talent. It’s fierce, fearless, and utterly original. Step into the ring – just be prepared for a few bruises along the way.