"McRae brings to the highly charged, obsessive world of professional
boxing a novelist's eye and ear for revealing detail and convincingly
recalled dialogue. This is an impassioned book."--Joyce Carol Oates,
Los Angeles Times
Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing, by Donald McRae, award-winning author of
twelve non-fiction books and staff writer for The Guardian, is widely
considered of one of the best boxing books all time.
This is a new edition, released in the United States for the first time,
that includes a new chapter by the author, plus a stunning cover that
features a painting of boxer James Toney by noted boxing artist Amanda
Kelley.
There is no other sport like boxing. Over twenty years ago, Donald McRae
set out across the United States and his adopted home, Britain, to find
deeper meaning in the brutal trade that had transfixed him since he was
a young man. The result is a stunning chronicle that captures not only
McRae's compelling personal journey through the world of professional
prizefighting, but also the stories of some of its biggest names in
boxing--James Toney, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Oscar De La Hoya,
Naseem Hamed, Roy Jones, Jr., and others.
Singular in his ability to uncover the emotional forces that drive men
to get into the ring, McRae brilliantly exposes the hopes and fears and
obsessions of these legendary fighters, while revealing some of his own
along the way. What he shares with them most, he comes to realize, is
that he is hopelessly, and willingly, lost in boxing.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 The Baddest Man
2 The Force
3 This Is Boxing, Baby
4 Oscar's Night
5 The King and the Prince
6 Guns and Fathers
7 Looking on Darkness
8 Death and the Man
9 The Cinderella Men
10 The Soldier Boy
11 Nothing Is Forever
12 The Beacon
13 The Bite
14 Fading Away
15 Still Lost in Boxing
Acknowledgments
