Rope Burns : Stories From the Corner

Rating:
Summary: Great Insight Into the Boxing World
Review: Although I am not a boxing fan per se, I found this book by Mr. Toole engrossing. He gives an in-depth view into the boxing world for boxing fans and others. Recommended reading!

Rating:
Summary: Unbeatable
Review: I had read a short bio of F.X. Toole aka Jerry Boyd in the International Herald Tribune. Never heard of the guy. But the interview and bio hooked me; I said to myself, hey, here's a guy who sounds like a real human being, and a struggling writer to boot, and not only that, he's no young pup. So maybe he's the real McCoy. Needless to say, I had high expectations, and that should have set this book up for failure, but I couldn't put the damned thing down. Jerry Boyd is one hell of a writer, and we can only hope his next book will be at least half as good as "Rope Burns."

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I'm not sure what's not to like about this series of short stories. Those who don't like F.X. Toole seem to fall into two categories. Either his characters are stereotypes or he's not literary enough. I found some genuinely interesting characters and stories with a point that are a refreshing change from the dusty introspective work that comes out of so many university creative writing departments these days. Toole was a careful observer of the craft of boxing and probably an ardent reader of Hemingway. His writing is traditional, and he's a wonderful storyteller.

If you like boxing novels like "The Professional" or "The Harder They Fall" but found reading "Fat City" to be a pointless chore, then this book is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Like a right lead, this book is effective and surprising, but it is left vulnerable. Toole does an excellent job of decribing the gritty, intense, and certainly brutal boxing life in each of the six short stories contained in this volume, but he doesn't really examine anything new. The stories tend to have fairly bland characters and involve recycled plots, but this is tolerable because the writing is excellent. While I was never on the edge of my seat because the stories were relatively predictable, I did not want to put the book down and was eager to start the next story as soon as I finished one. This isn't what I would call great literature, but I would recommend it to boxing fans or anyone who was a Rocky fan, Rope Burns is right up your alley.

Rating:
Summary: A Gutsy Book
Review: Now that F. X. Toole has been discovered, with the explosion onto the screen of Clint Eastwood's brilliant and moving "Million Dollar Baby," the average reader wants to know more about him and read his other stories. Although Toole himself represents an amazing story, as a cutman and boxing addict and late-blooming author, his collection here is, as others have said, repetitive, filled with stock characters, and pretty much a single story. But so what? The story is a great one, and Toole spent a lifetime learning its plot. At least he got it done, wrote a knockout piece, and had it transformed into a masterful movie that's a lasting work of art. The vicious cruelty he portrays in the long story, "Rope Burns," which takes place at the time of the Rodney King riots, is hard to bear, as is the realistic, nasty dialogue. But I was convinced that Toole has lived what he tells, and that makes the story even more sad and unforgettable. Hey: Toole isn't Hemingway. He's a guy telling his story in a reasonably literate fashion. I give him lots of credit for having the guts to step out there and do it!

Rating:
Summary: Raw and uncensored!
Review: One of the grittiest, heart pumping books I have ever read. 6 stories all related to boxers, their trainers, cutmen and the eerie lifes that surround them. From a crooked fighter trying to rip off a cutman, to a young woman trying to convince an older trainer to be the first woman to be trained, to a story in the backdrop of the L.A. riots of the early 90's. I felt anger, sorrow, pride and happiness throughout. Waiting for Mr. Toole's next book!

Rating:
Summary: A Significant Book
Review: The book does give you some insight into roles and the workings of the people in the corner of the ring and the work that goes on before the fighter gets into the ring. The series of short stories lack any depth. The book is very quick reading but not real stimulating. The book would be good as a gift but I don't know that I would go out and buy it.

Rating:
Summary: On-target
Review: The prose in Rope Burns is so accurate, so precise and so "right" that it's difficult to believe that this collection of shot stories is Toole's debut. What is clear, however, is that Toole is writing about a subject that he knows intimately and about which he has a real passion. As a former amateur-level boxer I recognized the characters and scenes in this book as realistic and insightful.

Toole gets it right. He slips effortly from ghetto dialect to Irish brogue to South California Spanglish, and perfectly captures the sights, sounds and smells of the gym. The stories here are all anchored in the ring, but vary somewhat in scope. There are dramatic elements of tragedy, death, gunfights - but in my opinion the most effective of the stories is "Fightin in Philly", in which Toole focuses the action entirely in the ring.

As an author Toole has a fighter's timing. His to-the-point delivery and almost complete lack of foreshadowing will take many reader's off-guard; these stories take tragic twists on a dime. Like a good fighter Toole keeps the reader off-balance. He's less effective when the storylines stray into social issues, and I found his handling of the Rodney King riots as a backdrop to one of the stories to be a bit ham-fisted, but when he sticks to what he knows these stories couldn't be better.

This is a great collections for boxing aficionados and for those who have no interest in the sport. Toole captures the "sweet science" as being far more than a contest of force. He does this through his ability to quickly and effectively develop the characters who compete in the ring, and those who shape them into fighters. Interestingly, he at one point quotes the Spanish existentialist philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, saying:

"To make a point about believing in God with one's whole being, Unamuno described fighters as being capable of throwing punches with such economy of effort that they are able to focus the force they unleash and thereby knock out their opponent by suing only those muscles necessary...that a blow delivered by a nonprofessional may not have as much effect on an opponent...but that it would have more effect on the nonpro who threw the punch, since it caused him to bring into play almost his entire body and energy....Unanumo's point was that one blow was that of a professional, the other of a man of flesh and bone - and that when a man of flesh and bone believed, he did so with his whole being."

So Toole, a first time author in his sixties, takes us from the details of being a ringside cutman to Spanish existentialist philosophy in one short volume of short stories. And it all works - this guy can write! Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: On-target
Review: The prose in Rope Burns is so accurate, so precise and so "right" that it's difficult to believe that this collection of shot stories is Toole's debut. What is clear, however, is that Toole is writing about a subject that he knows intimately and about which he has a real passion. As a former amateur-level boxer I recognized the characters and scenes in this book as realistic and insightful.

Toole gets it right. He slips effortly from ghetto dialect to Irish brogue to South California Spanglish, and perfectly captures the sights, sounds and smells of the gym. The stories here are all anchored in the ring, but vary somewhat in scope. There are dramatic elements of tragedy, death, gunfights - but in my opinion the most effective of the stories is "Fightin in Philly", in which Toole focuses the action entirely in the ring.

As an author Toole has a fighter's timing. His to-the-point delivery and almost complete lack of foreshadowing will take many reader's off-guard; these stories take tragic twists on a dime. Like a good fighter Toole keeps the reader off-balance. He's less effective when the storylines stray into social issues, and I found his handling of the Rodney King riots as a backdrop to one of the stories to be a bit ham-fisted, but when he sticks to what he knows these stories couldn't be better.

This is a great collections for boxing aficionados and for those who have no interest in the sport. Toole captures the "sweet science" as being far more than a contest of force. He does this through his ability to quickly and effectively develop the characters who compete in the ring, and those who shape them into fighters. Interestingly, he at one point quotes the Spanish existentialist philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, saying:

"To make a point about believing in God with one's whole being, Unamuno described fighters as being capable of throwing punches with such economy of effort that they are able to focus the force they unleash and thereby knock out their opponent by suing only those muscles necessary...that a blow delivered by a nonprofessional may not have as much effect on an opponent...but that it would have more effect on the nonpro who threw the punch, since it caused him to bring into play almost his entire body and energy....Unanumo's point was that one blow was that of a professional, the other of a man of flesh and bone - and that when a man of flesh and bone believed, he did so with his whole being."

So Toole, a first time author in his sixties, takes us from the details of being a ringside cutman to Spanish existentialist philosophy in one short volume of short stories. And it all works - this guy can write! Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A page-turner
Review: This man describes the "sweet science" oh so very well, but more than that, he introduces the reader to the flavors of different cultures, speech rhythms, emotions, and the realities of racism. The short stories in this book may seem repetitive, but each story takes the reader on side trips that won't be forgotten, describes food we can taste, and sights, smells and sounds that are real.

I find the real theme of this book to be that of character. Mr. Toole is a character expert and shows the reader the guts of each man, woman, and child using aptly worded descriptions and vernacular. Boxing is a bonus. Never underestimate the roles of the trainer, manager, or especially the cut-man who is doctor, pharmacist, psychologist, preacher, and father to the fighter. And don't underestimate the risks each fighter takes into the ring: injury, humiliation, poverty, even death.

The reader turns the pages ever more quickly as suspense grows in each story. We root for the good guys, boo the villains, and hope for the best even though the worst happens all too often.

My only criticism is that in a couple of the stories, I find the dialect too thick, but that may be as much my error as the author's.

I'm glad I bought this book. I wish I could write a first novel as good as this one.