A Hook and Jab Fairytale: Anna Freeman’s The Fair Fight

*First published in The Stake

It’s not every day a slam-winning performance poet writes a novel. But Anna Freeman, slam poet and writing teacher extraordinaire, has done it. The Fair Fight, her delicious new novel about female boxers duking it out in the 18th century, is a must-read. Freeman tackles the tough subject of women’s rage with an unusual twist, and in the process has created a delightful page turner.

The Fair Fight opens from the viewpoint of Ruth, a girl born in a Bristol brothel in the late 18th century. Ruth is relentlessly cheerful and happily profane. She knows all about sex and doesn’t shy away from the horrible truths of living in a whorehouse. Ruth’s mother is the madame of the house, and both Ruth and her sister, Dora, must work if they want to stay with their mother and have a roof over their heads. The sisters have the same patron, Granville Dryer. While he keeps Dora for his own special sexual pleasures, Granville carts Ruth around to different fighting matches. Ruth fights because it’s the only way she’s ever lived; she was born fighting. Fighting with her fists is preferable to prostitution or keeping the house clean.

Tangled up and around Ruth’s story is George, another of the novel’s narrator. George is the youngest son of an aspiring family with no use for him. After…