Million Dollar Baby: Stories From The Corner

From Publishers Weekly
The story of the 69-year-old author of this astonishing first fiction collection is a salutary one; he wrote between gigs tending boxers in their corners as a "cut man" (who stanches the blood flow and allows fights to continue), finally got a story published by a small literary magazine, was spotted by a keen-eyed agent and achieved book publication. It's amazing it took so long, because Irish-born Toole, now living and working in Los Angeles, is a natural. His knowledge of the bizarre world of professional boxing is encyclopedic and utterly persuasive, his prose is as tight as a well-laced pair of gloves and his protagonists, in this collection of five stories and a novella, are mythically heroic (and occasionally evil) but convincing archetypes. "The Money Look" is an exquisite turning-the-tables yarn at the expense of a cynical crook of a fighter; "Black Jew" is a telling tale of humble ambition woven with the lure of big money. A lacerating account of a courageous, deeply endearing hillbilly woman fighter and her sad fate, "Million $$$ Baby," is arguably the best story in the book. "Fightin' in Philly" is an almost equally moving tale of the toll the ambition to be a title fighter takes on a man. Another innocent torn up by the fight game is portrayed in "Frozen Water." Only the title novella, "Rope Burns," falls somewhat behind the sterling standard set by the other stories, with their firm authority and dead-on dialogue. It is more ambitious, even operatic, in its pitting of an almost superhumanly noble Olympic contender against a low-life East Los Angeles gang member at the time of the Rodney King riots. Like all of Toole's stories, it's breathlessly readable, even though the climactic bloodshed feels forced, as if Toole's cool narrative style cannot bear so much melodramatic freight. But make no mistake, the man is a heavyweight fiction contender. Agent, Nat Sobel. 6-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A boxing cut man uses swabs, pressure, ice, and home-mixed salve to stop his fighter's bleeding between rounds. Toole, 70, whose experience as a cut man inspired this hard-boiled debut collection of contemporary fight stories, writes with blunt authority about this world. His strongest tales feature old trainers or cut men like himself, wisely noble holdovers from boxing's Hibernian age. Toole's old-fashioned modern stories often deal in broad ethnic typesDhillbillies and homeboys, "4-dollar whores," Irish trainers exclaiming "Jaysus!"Dbut the real fight world is littered with such contrasts. His coldly plotted novella "Million $$$ Baby" begins like the most familiar old pulp story of the grumpy veteran trainer and the eager would-be student; then Toole freshens the clich by making the boxer an innocent young woman from the Ozarks. Here and there, though, Toole's authenticity breaks down, as in the unconvincing stories that lean heavily on black street dialog, "Frozen Water" and "Black Jew." Overall, his tales distinguish themselves by staying in the heartbreaking thick of it, never using boxing na vely as a savage metaphor for life (some life!). As a storyteller, Toole is both sentimental as a bar song and as cruelly precise as the sport he chronicles. Recommended for large fiction collections.DNathan Ward, "Library Journal" Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Allen Barra
Toole's prose is sharp and jablike, and at its best comes at you with the rhythm of a good gym fighter working on the speed bag.

From Booklist
Toole is a boxing "cut man" --the ringside assistant whose job, in those one-minute intervals between rounds, is to stop the flow of blood from a fighter's wounds. It's a career he came to in his forties when his own foray as a fighter ended because of physical ailments. He knows the fighters, the trainers, the promoters, the club fights, the courage, and the heartbreak of the boxing world intimately. And he writes like Sugar Ray Robinson fought: silky smooth but with startling power. In these six stories, his dialogue reflects the influence of the East L.A. streets without mimicking it, and menace is implied rather than stated. But Toole's strength is his ability to convey the universal humanity of his characters, whether it's a cut man cheated out of his share of the purse or a female fighter and her trainer who skirt the edges of big money before tragedy strikes. This is an impressive debut, reminiscent of Thom Jones' The Pugilist at Rest (1993). Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


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Riveting stories...A less confident author might try to dress up such simple material with flashy prose. But Toole is a traditionalist, enamored of boozy romanticism and colorful vernacular, and when he throws a punch it usually finds its target.Read all 7 "From The Critics" >


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