Soft Tissue Damage by Anna Whitwham

Soft Tissue Damage tells the story of author Anna Whitwham's lifelong interest in boxing manifesting itself in the physical act of getting into the ring to fight. From her first tentative training sessions through bruising sparring sessions and building up to a full-blooded fight, Whitwham charts the transformative impact the sport--and all its complicated implications--has on her during a profoundly difficult period dealing with the grief of losing her mother to cancer. Tender, insightful, honest and full of startling and original thought, this is a book that fully examines what the human body is both capable and incapable of, a book that examines what the human body truly means in its capacity for sexuality and violence, love and death, strength and vulnerability.