Sunday You Learn How to Box

Steve Fullwood

In contemporary literature, you won't find a more realistic and sensitively drawn portrait of an impovished black mother living in the ghetto, in conflict over her boy child's sexuality. Sunday You Learn how to Box delivers a knock-out punch.
— Venus Magazine

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Growing up in urban Connecticut's impoverished Stratfield Projects in the late '60s is hard enough for Louis Bowman, the 14-year-old narrator of this excellent, plainspoken debut novel: he's got a misguided mother who is by turns violent and vulnerable; a stepfather who both hates and ignores him; and an array of neighborhood bullies to dodge. To make matters more difficult, Louis is gay, a realization he comes to slowly as he becomes enthralled with Ray Anthony Robinson, an older boy his neighbors consider an "out-and-out-hoodlum." Enigmatic Ray becomes Louis's unofficial protector, though the two teens never speak of their bond. Louis's home life, meanwhile, becomes increasingly brutal and confusing. His mother, Jeannette, engineers Sunday boxing matches between Louis and his stepfather, Ben, hoping Louis will learn to protect himself from the other boys in the projects. Ben, however, uses the matches as an opportunity to knock Louis around the apartment. Jeannette dreams of owning a house outside the projects, but drinks a lot of scotch and often loses herself in the memory of her one brush with fame, years before, when she designed a dress for Billie Holiday. Louis is a likable na f, a boy for whom a simple nod indicates a world of acceptance. He is keenly aware of how racial discrimination affects him; when his teacher insists on calling him Louie, he notes: "Mom says white people always do that with a black person's name, change it to something that sounds like nobody could take the person seriously." Wright's prose is both straightforward and subtle, and his ear for dialogue is first-rate. Louis is a winning character, an adolescent coping gracefully with his bitter lot, whose emotional strength and resilience ensure his survival into adulthood. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

YA-This deeply felt coming-of-age novel reads like the best of memoirs. It's 1968 in the projects, and 14-year-old Louis Bowman has committed the unforgivable social crime of sissyhood, preferring mental activities to physical ones. The beatings he takes on the streets prompt his mother to force him into Sunday boxing lessons from his disgusted stepfather, Ben. To Louis and to readers, these feel more like sanctified opportunities for Ben to take out his violent frustrations on the boy. Louis's hardworking mother, though motivated by concern for his safety, is desperate to please Ben, hoping he'll be the family's ticket out of the projects. Meanwhile, Louis's grades drop and his school counselor diagnoses him with depression. Keeping the boy afloat is his budding crush on Ray Anthony Robinson, an eccentric "hoodlum" as isolated as Louis. The crush (more romantic than sexual at this point in his life) helps Louis to hold on, offering him moments of beauty and awe to counterbalance the darker circumstances of his life. His homosexuality, rather than being a cause for self-torment, recalls him to the wonder and warmth one can find even in the midst of the bleakest conditions. Wright has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and a genuine gift for capturing the intricacies and indeterminacies of family and community life. Both ensure that Louis Bowman will live with teen readers long after they close the book.-Emily Lloyd, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

The Philadelphia Tribune

“A realistic, poignant story. It grabs you from the beginning, digs at your heartstrings, and doesn't let go.”

The New York Times

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

New York World

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

Booklist

“A poignant coming-of-age story. Wright has written an unsentimental portrait of a vulnerable young black man.”

The New York Times bestselling author of Abide with Me

"Heartbreaking and heartwarming. I was touched in so many ways by this absolutely dazzling and elegant debut. You won't be able to put it down. "

Judy Lightfoot

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

Karin Cook

"Sunday You Learn How to Box has all the rhythm, drama, and dance of a good fight but in this case the battle matters more because the soul of a boy is at stake. In elegant and agile prose, Wright matches brutality with passion and heartbreak with hope. And a man in purple polyester pants walks off with the prize. This book is a knockout."

Gerry Gomez Pearlberg

"A mother's uphill battle to forge a better life for her family, her young son's struggle to survive in a world where the lines of "manhood" and "masculinity" are harshly drawn — Bil Wright's wrenching novel about growing up gay is sometimes crushing, sometimes exhilarating, but always full of grace. In this elegant and honest book, Wright engages difficult themes of love exhausted and renewed, dreams derailed and put back on track again, and the stubborn will to create one's destiny instead of falling prey to it. I was powerfully moved by Sunday You Learn How to Box. Its images singe. Its characters gleam."

E. Lynn Harris The New York Times bestselling author of Abide with Me

"Heartbreaking and heartwarming. I was touched in so many ways by this absolutely dazzling and elegant debut. You won't be able to put it down."