The Official Website of Bil Wright



Fourteen-year-old Louis Bowman is in a boxing ring - a housing project circa 1968 - fighting "just to get to the end of the round." Sharing the ring is his mother, Jeanette Stamps, a ferociously stubborn woman battling for her own dreams to be realized; his stepfather, Ben Stamps, the would-be savior, who becomes the sparring partner to them both; and the enigmatic Ray Anthony Robinson, the neighborhood "hoodlum," in purple polyester pants, who sets young Louis's heart spinning with the first stirrings of sexual longing. Bil Wright deftly evokes an unrelenting world with quirky humor and clear-eyed unsentimentality. "The patient, subtle rendering of one boy's developing emotional life leads us right into the mystery of how love grows in us all." -- Judy Lightfoot, Seattle Times "With striking immediacy, keen insight, and grace of language, Wright captures the anguish of adolescence and the complex bond between mothers and sons...riveting." -- New York World "Understated humor marks Bil Wright's first novel, Sunday You Learn How to Box...the absence of sentimentality is refreshing." -- Chase Madar, New York Times I have spent a good portion of my professional life either teaching or working in environments that were ostensibly structured to nurture the intellectual and social lives of people outside what society calls its "mainstream." The very concept of a mainstream in America is provocative, considering how many people fall outside of it; making for a very narrow "stream" with a good many Americans, because of race, economics, sexual orientation, physical or emotional disadvantages struggling to exist presumably on either shore. When I was teaching students struggling to increase their reading skills or working with adult students living with HIV and AIDS, members of my class would often comment on the dearth of characters they could relate to. "Professor Wright, you never see us in these books. It's somebody's version of what they think we are, but most of the time, it's not really us." I can't say that I wrote SUNDAY specifically for this group, but I definitely wrote it knowing there are Louises in the world who might have found "the ring" of their environment a little easier had they seen themselves in print and understood that there were other kids in comparable situations fighting to get through. I hope readers will be able to identify with Louis and Jeanette, whom I feel very close to, because their relationship, in its own way, is very classic and yet their personalities and individual histories give them specificity. -- Bil Wright

Fourteen-year-old Louis Bowman is in a boxing ring - a
housing project circa 1968 - fighting "just to get to the end
of the round." Sharing the ring is his mother, Jeanette
Stamps, a ferociously stubborn woman battling for her own
dreams to be realized; his stepfather, Ben Stamps, the
would-be savior, who becomes the sparring partner to them
both; and the enigmatic Ray Anthony Robinson, the
neighborhood "hoodlum," in purple polyester pants, who
sets young Louis's heart spinning with the first stirrings of
sexual longing. Bil Wright deftly evokes an unrelenting world
with quirky humor and clear-eyed unsentimentality.

Reviews for Sunday

"The patient, subtle rendering of one boy's developing emotional life leads us right into the mystery of how love grows in us all."
-- Judy Lightfoot, Seattle Times

"With striking immediacy, keen insight, and grace of language, Wright captures the anguish of adolescence and the complex bond between mothers and sons...riveting."

-- New York World

"Understated humor marks Bil Wright's first novel, Sunday You Learn How to Box...the absence of sentimentality is refreshing."

-- Chase Madar, New York Times

I have spent a good portion of my professional life either teaching or working in environments that were ostensibly structured to nurture the intellectual and social lives of people outside what society calls its "mainstream." The very concept of a mainstream in America is provocative, considering how many people fall outside of it; making for a very narrow "stream" with a good many Americans, because of race, economics, sexual orientation, physical or emotional disadvantages struggling to exist presumably on either shore. When I was teaching students struggling to increase their reading skills or working with adult students living with HIV and AIDS, members of my class would often comment on the dearth of characters they could relate to. "Professor Wright, you never see us in these books. It's somebody's version of what they think we are, but most of the time, it's not really us."

I can't say that I wrote SUNDAY specifically for this group, but I definitely wrote it knowing there are Louises in the world who might have found "the ring" of their environment a little easier had they seen themselves in print and understood that there were other kids in comparable situations fighting to get through. I hope readers will be able to identify with Louis and Jeanette, whom I feel very close to, because their relationship, in its own way, is very classic and yet their personalities and individual histories give them specificity.

-- Bil Wright