“I have to feel myself a fighter,” he said, hunching his shoulders, lowering his head, and bringing his fists up to his face…. “I am fighting for my career, for my writing, and for my success,” he went on. “Every day, I wake up early. And often I am tired, and my wife says ‘No, no.’ And I think, ‘I must get up and work.’” It is this determination that keeps him moving: “I tell my wife, ‘I am a boxer.’”

One can imagine Norman Mailer or Ernest Hemingway, some of the authors I discuss in Fighters & Writers, having similar conversations with their spouses.

Although the magazine might not carry as much boxing coverage as it did when A.J. Liebling was on the staff, the same edition of The New Yorker does include several more references to the sport. In a review of Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas, editor (and Muhammad Ali biographer) David Remnick writes that “in many black communities the celebrations surrounding the Obama election victory and the Inauguration were on a par with Joe Louis’s one-round knockout of Max Schmeling, in 1938.” Remnick also invokes “the Italian-American philosopher Rocky Balboa.” An article about efforts to build a football stadium in Los Angeles notes that the planned structure could also stage boxing matches and other events. Demonstrating that scribblers aren’t alone in their pugilistic interests, the magazine’s “Goings on about Town” section decorates its list of art gallery shows with an image created by Jeff Wall showing two gloved boys sparring in a living room. It’s titled “Boxing.”

Near the end of 2011, Monkey Puzzle Press released Christmas Things, a personal essay of musings prompted by a holiday visit to an eccentric couple’s house. The nonfiction chapbook, in either print or electronic format, can be ordered directly from the publisher by following this link: http://monkeypuzzlepress.com/books/christmas-things/

Enjoy!

I don’t dispute the truth of that statement. Yet even as someone who borrowed for personal use Hitchens’s self-description as not so much an atheist as an anti-theist, I didn’t think of him mainly as an ally, as someone with whom I had a lack of religious belief in common. Instead, I regarded him mainly as a writer, and I’ll miss reading the steady stream of excellent essays. I’ll miss the well-carpentered sentences. I’ll miss the voice.

Jaguars have a distinctive style of killing their prey, which can include virtually any other creature, since jaguars eat mammals, reptiles and fish. While other large cats rely on throat holds to strangle other beasts, jaguars can kill with a single bite through the neck – or right through the skull. One theory of the etymology of their name is that it derives from the word used by the Guarani Indians of the AmazonBasinin Brazil: yaguara, meaning an animal that can kill with one leap.

In his memoir Somebody’s Gotta Tell It, Jack Newfield outlines what he calls the “Joe Frazier method” of journalism. For him, the boxer “represented discipline, tenacity, courage, and maximizing whatever talent God gives you.” These qualities can be used as the foundation for an approach to writing: “keep coming forward. Don’t get discouraged. Be relentless. Don’t stop moving your hands. Break the others guy’s will.” Such an approach could also be seen as jaguar-like, since the cats display all the qualities Newfield describes.

 After his too-early death, Frazier’s legacy lives on.

Although Hitchens refers to his illness in the introduction to Arguably (and thanks his doctors in the acknowledgments), he did not include the Vanity Fair essays of illness in the collection. He reiterates his goal of wanting to “write posthumously,” and I can’t help suspecting he envisions the eventual appearance of at least one more volume, gathering his personal reflection on mortality, perhaps. I make no prediction this time, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

David envisions more accomplishments for himself. In the short term this means more tournaments, finishing up at Nichols Middle School and then high school (at Cass Tech, he thinks). In the long term, this means turning professional and eventually becoming a promoter.

His grades are “good but could be better,” David says. His trainer, Khali, asks him and the other kids he works with to show him their report cards. If his grades weren’t good enough, David told me, Khali would make him “do more push ups” and work with the tutors at the Downtown Boxing Gym.

In addition to his schoolwork, David undertakes research projects of his own. While he admires current-day boxers like Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Victor Ortiz, David is also a student of boxing history. He looks up fighters on the internet in order to learn their moves. He likes Mike Tyson because he was “strong, competitive and always came forward” and admires Muhammad Ali’s quickness. He sees posters of Ali every day at the gym, and has one on the wall at home. (Regarding the much sought-after Mayweather-Pacquiao match up, he “would pick Floyd to win but would want Manny to win.”)

David admits that he doesn’t especially like to train but goes to the gym Monday through Friday because that’s “part of the sport.” What he does like is hard fights, he says. He also likes that in boxing he doesn’t have to depend on teammates and only has to depend on himself. But he’s quick to praise Khali, his “great coach,” because he “doesn’t want to take all the credit.” Khali not only teaches him and makes sure he exercises; he also arranges for him to travel to different states, picks him up and gets him to where he needs to go.

2011 PAL Nationals Champ David Davis acknowledges one of his boxing heroes

Every sport is dangerous, David concedes. Yet he’s never been hurt in a fight, he claims, though he has been hurt (but “not bad”) in sparring. He believes (as Ali did) that football is more dangerous than boxing. He much prefers boxing to mixed martial arts, which he thinks is far more harmful than boxing. “You can really get hurt in UFC,” he says. “Boxing will always thrive,” he confidently states. “It’s the past, present and future if you ask me.”

His mother, Sheba McKinney, can accept David’s involvement in the sport in the present, but isn’t sure she’ll want to watch him in the ring when he and his opponents are bigger. “You don’t have to box,” she tells him. “You could become a commentator.” If he set his mind to it, I bet he could.

Inside the Downtown Boxing Gym

It takes five men to heft the cat onto a scale: He weighs 203 pounds. They measure his length, girth, tail and skull. He bears evidence of fighting, probably battling another male over territory. [Veterinarian Joares] May dabs salve on half-healed cuts covering the cat’s massive head and paws. He’s also missing half an ear. The team nicknames him “Holyfield,” after Evander Holyfield, the boxer who lost a portion of his ear to Mike Tyson’s teeth in 1997; certainly the jaguar’s compact, muscular body radiates the power of a prizefighter.

Regarding the much-needed conservation efforts Guynup chronicles, one of her sources reflects, “the jaguar really has a fighting chance.” Sounds about right.

• “The Fighting Life: Boxing and Identity in Novels by Philip Roth and Norman Mailer,” Philip Roth Studies, Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2011, pp. 83-96.
• “The Great Migration,” The American Interest, Vol. VII, No. 1, September/October 2011, pp. 95-99.
• “The Punch Not Thrown,” Spot Literary Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 38-39.

And it’s impossible to consider Koestler’s work, life and legacy without invoking the names of other giants of twentieth-century literature, as I demonstrate in a Logos essay. Orwell, Camus, Conrad, Auden, Sartre and Hemingway, among others, factor into his story – and not always in exclusively literary ways.

Koestler sometimes vacillated on the core principle of his best writing – that ends do not justify means – but Darkness at Noon expresses it superbly and powerfully. Paul Berman sensibly groups Koestler with Orwell and Camus, whom he deems the best writers on totalitarian themes of their era. That trio still has few rivals.