The Contender by Robert Lipsyte, HarperTrophy, 1967.
ISBN: 978-0-06-447039-1
Plot Summary
Abandoned by his father and left an orphan after his mother’s death, Alfred Brooks manages to survive due to his best friend James’ encouragement and his Aunt Pearl’s love. But when James drops out of school Alfred quickly follows and soon the two boys’ grandiose dreams for their futures are snuffed out. Stuck at a dead-end job at a grocery store, watching James quickly becoming a drug addict, Alfred feels hopeless. One day, after being beat up for something he didn’t do, Alfred decides to take up boxing and joins Donatelli’s gym. Despite Donatelli’s warning that boxing requires discipline and hard work Alfred is willing to learn. In fact, once he begins his boxing regimen, he finally feels like he has a purpose. Soon, Alfred is faster and stronger and earns the right to start fighting in amateur matches. But he quickly realizes that while he enjoys the practice and discipline boxing exacts he does not like the violence of an actual match. As Donatelli says, he lacks the killer instinct. But with nothing to fall back on what will Alfred do if he cannot box? And how can Alfred hope to save drug-addled James?
Critical Evaluation
A powerful story about true love, friendship, and self-awareness, The Contender is a book that readers of all ages will enjoy. Indeed, even those who have no interest in boxing will find applicable truths within The Contender. For while the book is about the mechanics of boxing it is also about so much more than that. In the book, Lipsyte uses boxing as a metaphor of how to triumphantly face life’s challenges. As boxing coach Donatelli tells Alfred when he first meets him, “Everybody wants to be a champion. That’s not enough. You have to start by wanting to be a contender, the man coming up, the man who knows there’s a good chance he’ll never get to the top, the man who’s willing to sweat and bleed to get up as high as his legs and his brains and his heart will take him” (Lipsyte, 1967, p. 35). As the novel progresses, readers realize that Donatelli is referring to more than simply boxing in his statement for Donatelli is an unusual coach. Unlike the other coaches, he refuses to push his contenders past their physical and emotional breaking point. Ultimately, Donatelli cares about his players as whole people rather than as a means to win a boxing match and make a name for himself. With a coach like Donatelli, Alfred questions his own goals and beliefs, realizing that Donatelli is not only teaching him how to box but how to live.
The Contender also serves as an important historical novel. Although not written as such, because the book dates back to 1967 when the Civil Rights movement was at the forefront of the nation’s thoughts, it provides an informative glimpse into the inner city during this period. Through his hard training, protagonist Alfred Brooks, deliberately chooses not to accept the excuse that he cannot be successful because ‘whitey’ has been bringing him down for years. Nor does Alfred proscribe to his uncle’s view that Alfred should always be thinking about advancement. Alfred simply wants to forge his own way in life, regardless of racial politics. Racism, and the changing status of African Americans, permeates the novel, no doubt making readers’ see parallels and differences between their time and that of Alfred’s. Overall, The Contender is a novel with a powerful message of hope and should be included in every library’s collection.
Reader’s Annotation
Determined to not fall prey to drugs and crime like so many of the other teens in his neighborhood, Alfred Brooks joins Donatelli’s gym in order to become a boxer.
About the Author
On his blog, Robert Lipsyte (n.d.) writes, “I've always had two writing lives, one as a journalist and one as a fiction writer. They've complemented each other. I love them both. My professional journalism life started in June, 1957, when I answered a classified ad in the New York Times for an ‘editorial assistant.’… I hated my new job - copyboy in the sports department - but I loved working at the paper. At 21 I became a reporter. I covered the New York Mets' first spring training in 1962, and in 1964 I was sent to Miami Beach to cover the heavyweight championship fight between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay. Because most people thought Liston would knock out the kid in the first round, the editors didn't send the real boxing reporter. Why waste his valuable time? So they sent another kid - me. Cassius Clay whipped Sonny Liston and guess who became the new boxing reporter?...
And I started my professional fiction writing career. I got the idea for my first YA novel, ‘The Contender.’ Two nights before the fight, I took an old boxing manager out to dinner. His name was Cus D'Amato. He told me about a gym he once owned in a tough neighborhood in Manhattan. It was at the top of three dark narrow twisting flights of stairs. He often slept at the top of the stairs, with a gun and German Shepherd. But he slept with one ear open - listening for a kid who would come up those stairs alone, at night and scared, but willing to conquer his fear to become somebody, a fighter, a contender. When I got back to New York after the fight, there was a letter waiting for me at The Times from Ferdinand Monjo, an editor at Harper & Row (now called HarperCollins.) He had enjoyed reading my boxing stories. Would I like to try my hand at a novel with boxing as its "milieu?" I had to look up that word - it means "setting" - before I answered his letter. You bet, I wrote. And I have a title - The Contender. Soon after the book came out, I became a sports columnist, and got very busy traveling and writing for the paper. I left in 1971 to write novels and movies (although in New Jersey not California) and didn't write another YA novel until 1977...most of my YA novels came out of my experiences as a journalist, either for newspapers…or for television…In 2001, I won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for lifetime contribution to Young Adult Literature. That one sent me back to the computer (actually, I write first drafts in pencil) to write more, faster…[my] [b]est new prize of all came in 2004 - Alfred Major Lipsyte, my grandson”. To date, Robert Lipsyte has composed twelve young adult novels and seven works of young adult non-fiction. His most recent book is his memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter, which was published in May 2011.
Lipsyte, R. (n.d.) Biography. Retrieved from http://www.robertlipsyte.com/bio.htm
Genre
Coming of Age, Realistic fiction, Sport stories
Tags
Boxing, innercity, New York, Harlem, African American male protagonist, education, drug use, gangs, juvenile crime, orphans
Curriculum Ties
The Contender would pair well with other books discussing the Civil Rights movement, underdogs, and the inner city.
Booktalk Ideas
--Start the talk with some of the quotes from the novel talking about what it means to be a contender in the ring as well as in life.
--Explain the basics of boxing before beginning the talk and explain how these rules apply to the rules one encounters in everyday life.
Reading Level/Interest Age
Reading Level: 5th grade
Interest Level: 9th-12th grade (14-18 yrs.)
AR Bookfinder (2010). The contender. Retrieved from http://www.arbookfind.com/bookdetail.aspx?q=5262&l=EN&slid=193559763
Challenge Issues
Some people may not be comfortable with the drug references within the book or approve of boxing in general. If challenged, librarians should point out the positive message of the novel and how Lipsyte uses boxing to make Alfred realize that he has a bright future ahead of him, one that includes finishing high school. Librarians should also take time to explain the library’s collection policy to would-be challengers.
Favorite Quotes
Donatelli: Everybody wants to be a champion. That’s not enough. You have to start by wanting to be a contender, the man coming up, the man who knows there’s a good chance he’ll never get to the top, the man who’s willing to sweat and bleed to get up as high as his legs and his brains and his heart will take him” (p. 35).
Alfred: [Spoon] said if you can concentrate on learning to box, you can concentrate on learning anything” (p. 196).
Why Was This Included?
I decided to include The Contender because I wanted to feature more sports stories and novels with African-American protagonists in them. I knew of this book because I had come across it while shelving in the Teen section at my local library. Also, upon reflection, I think someone I knew recommended it to me. Sadly, I cannot remember who the person was!
good book
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