Flyweight: A Novel
With many soldiers returning from Europe, East London of 1921 holds few opportunities for women needing employment. Lucy Cotter, married to former boxing champion Robin, is the sole breadwinner after he is blinded in WWI. She loses her cleaning job at a brewery. With no work prospects and plenty of free time, she reluctantly enters a boxing gym once run by her husband’s former coach. There she meets Siobhan McCarthy, a skilled female boxer, who hires Lucy to help keep the gym orderly and, for a few shillings more, to train as a boxer. Soon Siobhan coaxes Lucy to prepare for a female boxing “exhibit” against Siobhan. Robin and Lucy are still very much in love, and he encourages Lucy by putting her on a fighter’s diet and talking her through some of the finer strategies.
News reporters learn of the future women’s boxing match—and condemn it repeatedly. Lucy’s neighbors and others bully her horribly. Even as Lucy grows stronger and gains skills after months of training, she grapples with how much she is willing to risk—her reputation, her family’s stability, and society’s expectations—to fight publicly. No promoter has the courage to sponsor two women boxing.
Ellis superbly details Lucy’s training arc from neophyte to capable, but ever reluctant, boxer. We suffer with Lucy, Robin, and nine-year-old daughter Elle as they get evicted from their modest lodging, must pack up everything they own and endure Salvation Army dormitory sleeping quarters. The main storyline—will the two women be able to exhibit their skills?—builds to a surprising and rousing conclusion. Author notes explain the novel was inspired by actual events and women who tried to box in the 1920s but were blocked by society.
