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 woReuld-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
*Click
Here for notes on the writing of 'Sunday'.