Blows to the Head

A provocative tale of an unlikely contender and her midlife transformation through boxing."e;I peered through the Venetian blinds in our den, with its view of the playground next door, and watched mournfully as the popular girls played softball. I wanted to run fast, hit hard, and wear a cute uniform. These girls seemed to know something about life that I didn't."e;When Binnie Klein took up boxing in her midfifties, the reaction from friends and acquaintances was always the same: "e;You?"e; Why, after all, would a middle-aged Jewish psychotherapist with no previous history of athletics take up boxing? In Blows to the Head, Klein offers a provocative tale of an unlikely contender whose unexpected fascination with boxing takes her beyond the ring and leads her back to her roots and to a surprising chapter of the Jewish immigrant experience. With candor and wit, she reveals a series of memories and insights that would never have been possible if she hadn't been drawn toward a pair of boxing gloves during a physical therapy session. In a story that will captivate and inspire women and men, athletes and nonathletes, Klein shows us that if we turn over the "e;weird stones"e; on our path, the ones we usually ignore, we may find ourselves on an unexpected journey that will summon vitality back into our lives.