Lipsyte is a self-described accidental sportswriter, but aside from his sports reporting he has written four boxing novels that are standards of Y/A fiction – emotionally involving, heart-felt, flat-out great reads . . .
THE CONTENDER
Before you can be a champion, you have to be a contender.
Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a highschool dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street kids are after him for something he didn't even do.
So, Alfred begins going to Donatelli's Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it's the effort, not the win, that makes the man – that last desperate struggle to get back on your feet when you thought you were down for the count.
Sonny's been an outsider all his life.
He has never fit into either world: the Moscondagas on the Reservation see him as white; whites see him as Indian. So far, Sonny's managed to harness his anger – what he calls "the monster" – in the boxing ring. But Sonny wants out of the Res. He's headed for New York City, where nobody can tell him what to do.
Sonny doesn't count on stepping into the middle of a drug war when he gets there – or on tangling with a tough Harlem boxer-turned-cop named Alfred Brooks. Brooks seems to think that Sonny's got the talent to make it to the top – to be a contender. But first Sonny's got to learn to be smart, take control of his life, and beat the monster. Only it isn't as easy as it sounds...
Sonny Bear is a champion . . . but he needs the help of an angel.
Sonny Bear, the Tomahawk Kid, is on a fast downhill slide with the heavyweight championship at stake. He hardly knows who he is anymore, or why he should keep on fighting.
Then the first e-mail arrives.
“Do not lose heart. I come on a Mission from the Creator to save you.” – Warrior Angel
The Warrior Angel might be just what Sonny Bear needs – but will Sonny be prepared to save him, too?
A fight for his people.
Sonny Bear, the Tomahawk Kid, has a championship left hook. But his boxing career's going nowhere, and he's ready to hang it up.
Then his manager, tough ex-cop Alfred Brooks, and his "writer," college boy Martin Malcolm Witherspoon, scheme Sonny into a glitzy Las Vegas match. Suddenly he's everybody's darling and headed for Hollywood stardom.
But fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, and Sonny needs to make the fight of his life to decide where he really belongs.
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