The Manager. Caroline Stellings. Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press, 2013. 182 pp., trade pbk., $14.95. ISBN 978-1-927492-47-5. Grades 9 and up / Ages 14 and up. Review by Kim Aippersbach. **** /4 Reviewed from Advance Reading Copy.

excerpt:

Tina preferred worn-out, filthy old copies of The Ring that had been passed around by every guy in the gym and read on buses, on lunch counters and on toilets. They'd been used as place mats under chili (you could tell from the stuck-on kidney beans), folded into a tube to be used as a megaphone during training and had big holes in them where somebody had torn out ads for muscle-boosting vitamins or cures for balding. To me, every cover looked the same: some man, naked from the waist, holding up his fists and looking like you'd just insulted his mother. Tina said it was the "bible of boxing" and besides, where else could you find articles on Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and the Sugar Rays-Robinson and Leonard. I said it was no way to treat a bible.

The Manager is a crazy road-trip story about a girl who knows she can manage a boxer and a boxer who might have what it takes to make it big. Tina is the main character of The Manager, but the story is narrated by her younger sister, Ellie, who is protective of and exasperated by and mystified by her boxing-mad, headstrong, resentful sister. Tina is an achondroplastic dwarf, and she is angry about it. "And hers was not a feeble little stick-out-your-tongue sort of resentment, but a deep-seated, I'll-make-you-and-everyone-I-know-miserable-because-I'm-miserable kind of bitterness."

      Tina wants nothing more than to be noticed by their father who runs a boxing gym in Antigonish. She knows everything there is to know about boxing and helps train the young men who are hoping to fight professionally. The boxing gym needs to train a champion in order to succeed financially, but Tina doesn't think much of Ryan, the contender her father is banking on.

      An opportunity arises for Tina to go to Boston to have a brutal medical procedure that she hopes can make her taller. Ellie tries to talk her out of it, but Tina has been saving money for years for this procedure and is determined to go through with it. On the way to Boston, they stop at a friend of a friend's where they meet the very good-looking Jesse Mankiller and his manager, Paul. They go to Jesse's fight in Halifax where Paul suffers a heart attack. Tina is impressed with Jesse's skill and convinces him that he should continue his scheduled fights-which end up at Boston-with her as his manager.

      Jesse, Tina and Ellie head out on the road to Boston. They run into some scary Irish mobsters and an eccentric family of hillbillies. Jesse has family troubles that make him turn around to go home. Through it all, Tina remains determined and focused on her goal. When Jesse finally makes it to the championship fight in Boston, his opponent is Ryan, Tina's father's boxer. Jesse cares enough for Tina that he is willing to throw the fight in order to save her father's gym, but Tina comes up with a better idea: Jesse wins the fight and makes her father his permanent manager. The validation of winning the fight, saving her father's gym, and getting the guy makes Tina decide not to go ahead with the medical procedure.

      The Manager is, by turns, heartbreakingly tender and slapstick funny. Tina and Jesse are both powerful characters, entertaining and compelling to watch as they passionately fight the cards life has dealt them. Ellie's compassionate but opinionated voice is the perfect way for readers to enjoy the humour in the situations the characters get themselves into while still allowing readers to care deeply about both of them.

      Stellings' writing is vivid and fast-paced, the plot full of unexpected turns with a satisfying denouement. She deftly evokes the 1979 rural east-coast setting and convincingly recreates the bloody, smelly world of boxing.

      The Manager will definitely appeal to boxing fans, but it has a much wider audience. Anyone who appreciates Susan Juby's quirky brand of humour will want to try Caroline Stellings, and readers who like strong characters and interesting character studies will want to meet Tina MacKenzie.

Highly Recommended.

Kim Aippersbach, a writer, editor, and mother of three, lives in Vancouver, BC.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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