MILLION DOLLAR BABY: STORIES from the CORNER by F.X. Toole

 



















F.X. Toole (1930-2002) worked as a trainer and as a corner man in support of boxers for decades.  Think of the character Mickey in the Rocky movies and you have an idea of what he did.

But, unlike the barely literate Mickey, Toole was a powerful writer of boxing short stories. All I know about boxing comes from having watched all of the Rocky and Creed movies, so I freely admit that I know almost nothing about boxing. But, that did not matter because Toole made these short stories compelling, even if they were full of boxing jargon and practices that I was unfamiliar with. 

There are six stories, most are very good. The story that the Clint Eastwood movie Million Dollar Baby was adapted from is extraordinarily powerful and haunting. The story that was original title story for this collection, Rope Burns, started out very strong, but the ending was so over the top that it ended up being the worst story of the collection. 

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: 

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