Confessions of a Fighter: Battling Through the New York Golden Gloves

What Wood's books are screaming for is the prequel, revealing more about how he, exploding with anger, jumped into the ring to wrestle with phantoms, real and imagined. Confessions of a Fighter asks the yet unanswered question, "what drove this guy to the ring for redemption?" Told with compassion and honest insight, such stories need a telling in this time of so much legitimate anger at leaders who are plundering time and resources that need be put to addressing the environmental catastrophe that is in process. The planet needs the care from us just as we need it from each other, if we are to survive. In the personal struggle for survival can be the roadmap for collective survival. The powerlessness that so many of us feel in not seeing done what must be done is anger-making squared. A more extensive Wood narrative of his youth would be a microcosmic tale of similar frustration and futility, shedding greater light on what drove him to slam fists into the bodies of brothers. However violent, ironically it stands as an act of hope, a desire to break through. It is both a cautionary tale and a story of redemption, as the earlier books bear out. A would-be great trilogy, for sure. Read the Wood books in print already with a broad eye toward a universality that embraces larger and very contemporary challenges from which none of us can escape. A ring we must all step into is beckoning. Come on, Wood, where's the prequel?

This is a great book about mood and atmosphere, a book for boxing junkies and spectators, a book about smelly gyms and tense suburban dining rooms, a great read for anyone who has suffered the ups and downs of adolescence and ached for the wonderful release of revenge. The prose is exacting and unexpected - witness the mood that liberates the author on the brink of the first round, when " [the bell rang and]..the icy snowball in the pit of my stomach burst and my mind floated away serenely, like a butterfly." Muhammad Ali's rhymes have been downgraded accordingly. The characters are drawn but never overdrawn. The fight preparations and realities are elaborated in painstaking detail. The reader learns the psychology of the boxers as well as their physical and tactical weaknesses and strengths. The protagonist is all but unique - not from "Hell's Kitchen" but from the seemingly well-protected middle class world of Robert Redford's "Ordinary People." This book surprises continuously, never allowing the reader to settle in comfortably, just like a good fight.

I enjoyed your book as it took me back 35 years to Buffano's gym, you had me fooled Pete, I thought you were a tough Jersey City street kid, well you fought like one anyway. Your book reminded me of being a part of the boxing family;it's funny how boxers can beat each other up, but at the same time share a brotherly bond. In your book you spoke of praying for yourself and your opponent, that it would be a good fight for the fans and that neither would get hurt. I prayed the same prayer before each of my fights. God always came through. Keep punching, Willy Capuano

Confessions of a Fighter: Battling Through the Golden Gloves is the autobiography of boxer Peter Wood, from his turbulent home life amid a stepfather who verbally abuses him and half-siblings who compound his misery, to his decision to literally start training to fight back in a crumbling local gym, to his astonishing ascent to the finals of the New York Golden Gloves Championships in 1971. A visceral, tell-it-like-it-is view of the rigors of training, the heart-stopping fear of losing a fight, and the moment of truth and clarity experienced before tens of thousands of riled-up spectators, Confessions of a Fighter is an absorbing read from cover to cover. Especially recommended for boxing fans, and also for anyone contemplating the long, hard, and painful road to fighting championships for themselves.

Confessions of a Fighter is the glorious and nightmarish story of a young man's dream and quest to win the New York Golden Gloves championship. Despite a hellish home life and abusive step father, Wood escapes and batters his way towards his own personal arena of manhood and self discovery. Wood takes the reader on a psychological roller coaster ride. Every chapter is like a round in the ring, rank with street jargon and sweat, as we get a first hand look at the tortured inner life of a teen driven to express himself with his fists in the tough,urban world of amateur boxing. Wood's writing is as gritty, and hard-hitting as his torturous journey towards his final fight. The book is a clear Winner.