{"id":122385,"date":"2025-09-05T18:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/122385\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T18:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:09:07","slug":"lucas-schaefer-understands-the-brutality-absurdity-and-transcendence-of-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/122385\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucas Schaefer Understands The Brutality, Absurdity, And Transcendence Of Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The opening line of Lucas Schaefer\u2019s novel The Slip<\/a> concerns the smell of shit: a bold first impression for a debut author. Luckily, reading the book provides a far more pleasant sensory experience. The Slip\u2014set in Austin, Texas, between 1998 and 2014\u2014is part boxing novel, part mystery, part exploration of the vagaries of identity. It centers around the disappearance of teenager Nathaniel Rothstein, and features rich subplots, compelling side characters, and five twists that will catch you off guard for each one you guess. It wraps up at 484 pages. Should this sound daunting, rest assured Schaefer\u2019s audacious, often laugh-out-loud funny prose is a swift and gentle guide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schaefer doesn\u2019t shy away from boxing\u2019s cruelty\u2014a chapter is called \u201cTomato Can,\u201d named for hopelessly and often dangerously overmatched opponents used to juice up a hot prospect\u2019s record, who are \u201ccalled such because dropped ones leak red\u201d\u2014or its absurdity. In one scene, a sham of a professional bout in Africa is literally washed into the sea by surging tides. A fighter named Carlos Ortega floats away on the ring without a care, shadowboxing into the storm. And yet boxing also offers camaraderie, primarily at Terry Tucker\u2019s Boxing Gym.<\/p>\n

Ortega is not the only character Schaefer paints as adrift. Throughout the novel, various people pursue their ideal versions of themselves by boxing, cross-dressing, masquerading as another person during phone sex, and, in one particularly misguided instance, doing blackface\u2014the white Nathaniel darkens his skin to appear more like his Haitian mentor, David Dalice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recently, Schaefer joined me on Zoom for a broad conversation about the book, boxing, writing sex, and the troubled, isolating times we live in now. The interview has been edited and condensed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How have you felt about the reception to this book so far, and has anything surprised you?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been great! I don\u2019t know if it surprised me, but it\u2019s been interesting. There\u2019s been all this dialogue now about \u201cAre men reading?\u201d I have gotten a lot of feedback from men, some of whom have said they\u2019re not generally fiction readers or maybe literary fiction readers, but really responded to this book. So that\u2019s been nice. I don\u2019t buy the whole \u201cMen aren\u2019t reading\u201d thing in the first place, but given that that seems to percolate in the discourse<\/a> with some frequency, it\u2019s been interesting to see that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think the other thing is, and I knew this writing the book, that this is a boxing book that hopefully would appeal to people who don\u2019t know anything about boxing or maybe don\u2019t have interest in boxing, as well as people who do. So far, at least, I\u2019ve had some readers who initially were a little bit unsure whether they wanted to read a book about boxing who I managed to hook in the end, so that\u2019s been satisfying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It struck me that there are two worlds of boxing represented in the book: One is this gym culture, which I think has quite a positive connotation and can foster really strong community, and the other this brutal, inhumane, often absurd world of professional boxing. Does that breakdown sound right, and how do you feel about each of those worlds?<\/p>\n

Oh, that\u2019s an interesting one. I\u2019ve never thought about it that way. I\u2019m sure subconsciously, that is totally how I feel. I feel like I know much more about boxing gym culture than about professional boxing culture. I moved to Austin in 2006. I was 24, I didn\u2019t really know anyone, and I saw an ad for an evening class at a boxing gym, and went, having never boxed before, knowing nothing about boxing, and was just immediately enamored with this place. The gym I went to is called Lord\u2019s Gym<\/a>, it\u2019s still around on Lamar Boulevard, North Lamar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The thing I love about boxing gyms is that they\u2019re just these places where everyone goes. The gym had people like me, who\u2019d just moved to Austin. There were people who were born in Austin, who\u2019d been there for 30, 50, 60 years. Every race, every religion, every profession, every age. I think unlike some other sports, there\u2019s an element of meritocracy to it. You don\u2019t have to buy skis, or buy golf clubs, or have access to a swimming pool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professional boxing, I knew less about as a writer, but definitely had some skepticism about the seedier, seamier aspects of that world. As I got to know boxers at the gym, I realized I didn\u2019t really like watching boxing\u2014in part because I started to know boxers, and I was like, I don\u2019t really want to watch someone punch you in the head! This is sort of unsettling. I\u2019ve always kept a little bit of a distance from that more professional world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On that seedier side, something I really appreciated that you touched on in the book was the tomato can. I covered one show in person, and I interviewed someone who was a tomato can and there to be food for this 18-year-old prospect\u2014he was a barber and had been boxing for 10 months. They really do throw anyone in there. There\u2019s a conversation really early in The Slip where someone is trying to sell Terry Tucker on an opponent who has \u201ca very mild palsy\u201d for his fighter Alexis Cepeda. I can\u2019t speak to those conversations, but I read that, and I was like, Yeah! It does seem like that kind of is how it goes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I remember going to a match at one point\u2014I think it was two women\u2014and this woman threw one punch at her opponent, who just fell over and threw up over the side of the canvas, and that was sort of it. I always thought of that when I was working on some of the tomato-can stuff. It\u2019s kind of just an appalling thing, that there\u2019s this world of putting people in the ring essentially to lose\u2014not that they\u2019re intentionally throwing the matches, but they\u2019re not equipped. But I was very interested with this character, David, who\u2019s the tomato can in the book\u2014a character who\u2019s thrown into this world of boxing, basically, on a lark, because he\u2019s this big guy who looks like he could do some damage even though he doesn\u2019t have any skill for the sport\u2014but then really letting him fall in love with boxing, and start to feel like, Oh, maybe I can make it! And then the heartbreak of, no, the role you were cast in in terms of boxing is the role you are. That, to me, was dramatically compelling. I\u2019m trying to think of an analogous situation in other realms of life, and it\u2019s hard to come up with something like the tomato can. It seems very true to the boxing world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You mention that he gets knocked out via a liver shot early in his career, and somehow this makes him want to keep going, even though body<\/a> shots<\/a> are famously an excruciatingly painful way to get knocked out. I feel like boxing has an addictive quality to it even though it inflicts a lot of pain, and I don\u2019t really understand that phenomenon even though I know it exists. I\u2019m wondering if you have any thoughts on that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I went to this boxing gym very consistently for four or five years strictly for the workouts. But even at that level, there\u2019s something that happens when you\u2019re hitting the heavy bag, or when you find the rhythm with the speed bag or the double-end bag, that, to me, is kind of the magic of boxing and a boxing workout: this feeling of transcending yourself. A lot of characters in this book are experimenting with who they are. Is who they think they are who they are? Is there a version of themselves that\u2019s bigger or stronger or different in some way then how they\u2019ve perceived themselves before? It\u2019s a lot of characters trying on different personalities and personas, and sometimes trying on personalities that are their true personality\u2014what they\u2019ve been wearing before has been something false. I think there\u2019s a link between that and that experience of throwing punches. There\u2019s kind of nothing like it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A scene that I really loved was Carlos Ortega floating off into the sea, throwing punches. This sport, professionally, is so absurd. The ring washing away feels entirely in-character for boxing to me. It felt realistic in this world, even if it wouldn\u2019t be so in any other world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love to hear that, thank you. One of my goals for this book was that I intentionally didn\u2019t want to write a satire in the traditional sense. I wanted this book grounded in reality. Outlandish things happen in the book, and if it succeeds, the reader believes that they\u2019re happening. Taking away the spectacle of boxing, just on a fundamental level, what the sport is is insane. You\u2019re going into a ring and just fighting. It\u2019s crazy! I think this is why I don\u2019t always like to watch it\u2014I\u2019m like, Oh god, this is brutal! But that\u2019s what it is. That\u2019s what it is.<\/p>\n

This is maybe a moment when it tips slightly into satire, but it\u2019s when this minor character Felix is going to Africa to fight a guy called \u201cThe Butcher,\u201d I\u2019m thinking, Oh god, he\u2019s gonna get slaughtered. But he\u2019s called that because he is an actual butcher and has never fought before!<\/p>\n

[laughs] There were definitely elements and aspects of satire. I\u2019ll give you a quick anecdote. One of the big boxers at Lord\u2019s Boxing Gym when I was there was Jesus Chavez<\/a>, who had a very storied career. There was about a week in the four or five years I was there when I was like, I\u2019m gonna start sparring. So I put on the body cup and the headgear and get my little mouthguard, and all of this. I ended up sparring twice, and the second time I did it, I was sparring with a guy who was maybe 20 years older than I was. He said, \u201cYou\u2019re interested in being a writer, right?\u201d after we sparred. I said, \u201cUh-huh.\u201d He said, \u201cI would do something else. You kind of need your brain for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Around that time, I was in the gym in my whole getup, and Jesus Chavez was working out. There were a bunch of people like me sparring\u2014hobbyists, not even amateurs. He had all of us get in the ring and he was gonna spar with each of us for 30 seconds. Real light, real light. There were seven or eight of us. The first guy goes in, does it, then the second guy, the third guy. They get through seven, and I\u2019m the eighth guy. When it gets to me, I just don\u2019t go in the ring. I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m good. I\u2019m good.\u201d Afterwards, he came up to me and said, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you come in the ring?\u201d I mumbled some excuse, but later on, I was thinking, Shouldn\u2019t the question be, why did the seven people get in the ring? Isn\u2019t that the true question? This is sort of one of the animating questions of the book: Why are you doing this? And people have lots of good reasons for doing it, and feel very powerful doing it. But it\u2019s still a little bit insane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To transition into some other parts of the book, multiple characters have crises of masculinity, and I sort of connected that in my head to boxing creating a culture of hypermasculinity, even if not all these characters are involved with boxing. Why did you choose that as a recurring theme throughout the book?<\/p>\n

I think as a writer, I\u2019m interested in the big questions facing us now, and I think that is a question facing us now: What is our relationship with masculinity in 2025? It seems like it\u2019s not going well. [laughs] From what I can tell. But I think this question of who we are, and figuring out who we are, is tied up in masculinity for a lot of the characters in the book. Nathaniel, who\u2019s our protagonist, he\u2019s the pudgy kid. He wears this big sweatshirt because he\u2019s embarrassed about his looks. He loves musicals, but he\u2019s so embarrassed of that, because it seems gay to him, essentially. The boxing gym is really attractive to him, because it seems like this tough place where guys are guys. Of course, that\u2019s not really what is happening at the gym. He finds a version of himself. The funny thing about Nathaniel is that he\u2019s doing something that\u2019s very healthy: He\u2019s experimenting with who he is in the context of this gym, but then he\u2019s also engaging in behavior we would probably describe as problematic in terms of imitating David.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With many of the characters, I do think there is a question of \u201cWhat does it mean to be a man?\u201d As they seek answers to that question, they make different decisions, some of which turn out well, and some of which turn out less well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To that point about issues facing us now, even though it\u2019s set from 1998 to 2014, many issues in the book are directly relevant in 2025. How important was the setting, and to not have 2025 characters facing 2025 issues?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Very important. When I first sold the book, it went to 2024. When you get to the women of the Citizen Police Academy, they\u2019re wearing masks, because it\u2019s in COVID. My editor was just like, \u201cDear god, no. People\u2019s eyes are gonna glaze over at this. It\u2019s too recent.\u201d The 1998 parts of the book felt very textured and worn. I\u2019d written them over a lot of years, it was a lot of years ago, that\u2019s a nice feeling, I think, for fiction. And the 2024 stuff \u2026 this snow is too fresh. So I moved it back to 2014, and it was a great decision. I think it\u2019s very hard to write about 2025 set in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I also think one of the advantages of setting the book from 1998 to 2014 is that it allows us to not only think about the issues facing us now but how we got there in the first place. Particularly with something like immigration. A lot of the issues the characters are facing in the book are in the news all the time now, because the Trump administration is completely over the top in their immigration terrorism. But those things had been happening before, just on a smaller scale\u2014to varying extents depending on the specific issue. So I thought that was interesting to think about. How did we wind up in this?<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t stop myself from thinking how these characters might cope in today\u2019s world. I feel like there\u2019s this ongoing dialogue of, are things worse now than they were two decades ago, or are things actually better than they\u2019ve ever been. X is a really interesting character in this regard, because he is struggling with his gender identity, and there\u2019s all of one book in the library that affirms his existence. Is that better than today, when teenagers are much more able to access information about being trans but are also subject to these vicious attacks from politicians? That ran through my head when reading that bit.<\/p>\n

X is an interesting character, because, and I say this in the book, any conversation about transness he has never been a party to. He doesn\u2019t know any trans people, he hasn\u2019t heard about trans people. So I wasn\u2019t really focused on \u201cIs it better then, or is it better now?\u201d as much as \u201cWhat would it be like, then, to be going through these questions about your gender and have no reference point whatsoever?\u201d And I think as someone who\u2019s not trans, that also forced me to get inside X in a deeper way than I might have had he had access to all those conversations. I really had to sit with that and think, What, moment by moment, might this feel like, to be navigating this in Austin, Texas in 1998? Every time you\u2019re writing someone who\u2019s different from you, you want to do that with care, and I think the 1998 setting forced a level of care on me that was helpful to the narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t really answer your thought about masculinity in X, but the other thing I\u2019d say specifically about that is just that the two activities that occur numerous times in this book are boxing and sex, because those are two activities where you do, again, transcend yourself. There aren\u2019t that many things we do day-to-day where you can really try on a new persona, or experiment boldly with a new facet of yourself. Throwing punches, having sex? Yes. Other things, maybe not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am curious about writing sex, because it\u2019s a tricky thing\u2014I\u2019ve heard Sally Rooney say before<\/a> that it is difficult to describe sex in a way that is familiar to the reader without becoming repetitive. I think you\u2019re sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum, to an extent. There\u2019s a line that made me laugh about people who call a phone sex hotline\u2014I think the phrase you used was \u201cpervy piggies pounding their Pomeranians\u201d?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh yes. That is the phrase. [laughs]<\/p>\n

How did you get to that approach of writing sex or sex-adjacent parts of the book, and did you struggle with it at all?<\/p>\n

Those parts of the book I had a lot of fun writing. It came naturally to me for whatever reason. The book is definitely maximalist. I sort of wanted to go for it on all levels, so the same applied to sex. Nathaniel and X are both 16. One of the things I wanted to make sure came across in this was how gross it is to be 16. I think we forget\u2014it\u2019s a lot of fluid and smells, and you\u2019re just figuring it out. It\u2019s a little bit icky, but also exhilarating, and interesting, and new and different. I wanted to make sure I didn\u2019t sanitize the sexual experience too much in that way. The other aspect of writing sex here is so many characters, as they\u2019re having sex, are not ostensibly themselves. I think all of us, as we\u2019re growing up in adolescence, do that to some extent, and do it in the sexual realm, where you\u2019re figuring it out, you\u2019re pretending. But that also is the reality, because that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing. So it\u2019s this interesting contradiction that I thought was worth exploring. But, you know, adolescence, it\u2019s a little bit gross.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A white person pretending to be Black is a very thorny issue\u2014how did you approach that, and was there any hesitation there, particularly when it came to Nathaniel getting his comeuppance and how you ended his story?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have hesitation with how I ended it. The book took about 12 years to write, but that existed from very early on. I wrote the book with a lot of intention. I was very interested in this dynamic that I saw when I was in high school, and I also used to be a teacher, so I saw this among students: white kids who aspired to Blackness, particularly when it came to athletics. They idolized Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Serena, but also were a little bit racist, or had preconceived notions about Blackness or people of color that were just not accurate. This contradiction was one that seemed important to explore to me. I felt like if I did that earnestly and with a sense of curiosity and openness, I could do it in a way that was truly exploring and investigating these issues as opposed to just being offensive. I also had no contrarian aspirations with this. This was not a book where I sat down to write this, and it\u2019s like, \u201cWhy are you writing this book?\u201d and the answer is \u201cBecause I can.\u201d The answer is because these issues of identity and how we engage with each other across our different identities\u2014that, to me, is the core question facing us right now. How do we all live together? It seemed to me that if I was honest and thoughtful about how these characters would explore those questions, it would be hopefully received that way.<\/p>\n

There are a few lines in the book, of Nathaniel\u2019s, or things that Nathaniel was thinking, where multiple people across readings were like, \u201cIs there any way you can get rid of this line? It\u2019s just so cringey.\u201d There\u2019s one line where Nathaniel gets a C+ on his paper, and it says \u201cCome see me.\u201d There\u2019s an African-American student next to him who also got a C+, and it says \u201cGreat effort, keep going.\u201d Nathaniel says, \u201cWas slavery the reason that this happened?\u201d Such a cringey line. A number of different readers said, \u201cOh god, it makes my stomach turn reading it.\u201d My question was always, Is this what Nathaniel would have thought at that time? Is it what he would have said? And if the answer was yes, it seemed important to me to keep it, because it\u2019s hard to explore those tensions that I\u2019m thinking about if I\u2019m not being honest about what he is actually thinking, as ill-informed as it is. And there were also things I had in there that I did end up cutting, because I thought, Ah, this is too much, or this is beyond what he would actually think.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the reasons I had Nathaniel come from Newton, Massachusetts, which is the town where I came from, was because I knew I could get the details about his racial outlook correct. An early draft of the book had him from suburban Houston; initially my thought was that he just needs to come from the suburbs and be transplanted into Austin, and he needs to be going from this more buttoned-up community to this looser community. But it didn\u2019t really work, because I didn\u2019t know those specifics about how the kids in his friend circle would perceive race in America at that time. So I was like, You know what, I\u2019m just gonna make it Newton. Because if I\u2019m going to have him saying offensive things, I want to make sure they\u2019re the things he would actually think. I\u2019m not going to have offensive things in the book just for the sake of seeming offensive. I want to get that element right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In terms of the ending, the only thing I\u2019d push back on a little is the word \u201ccomeuppance.\u201d Because he certainly has a comeuppance in terms of how he ends up where he ends up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the themes of this book is the ways in which our judgments about each other based on identity\u2014particularly racism, but not only that\u2014can just rot our brains. So a lot of characters, when confronted with facts that should lead them to the proper conclusion, just can\u2019t get there because they can\u2019t get past their own notions of how the world works. One of the questions I think I\u2019m asking is, Does the world work that way? Are we being a little reductive here?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I really love The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul\u2014these TV shows where process is so central. If you kill someone, it\u2019s not just go to the next scene, it\u2019s, what do you do with the body? What do you do with the shoelaces? What do you do with the head? One of the ways I approached this book, including in these more provocative sections, is just, what would happen next? What would really happen next? So it was less a question of what does a character deserve, or what does a character learn, it was just simply, what happens next? And taking that to what seemed like a conclusion that is logical based on the different characters and their objectives, and their lines of thinking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think for those of us who have come of age as writers with Twitter, with all of this social media out there, there\u2019s this tendency to have a million caveats before you say whatever you\u2019re gonna say. You don\u2019t want to be misinterpreted. So you\u2019re gonna have this almost-treatise about what you\u2019re not saying before you say what you are saying. None of this is good for novel writing. You\u2019re not writing a treatise when you\u2019re writing a novel, you\u2019re writing a story. So I had to resist the impulse at times to sort of temper Nathaniel\u2019s racial views, or say, \u201cI just want to make clear, as the writer, that this isn\u2019t what I believe.\u201d You just have to do away with that, and work to make the reader understand what you\u2019re up to. It was very intentional to not do that long preamble about, Hey, some uncomfortable things are going to happen, but let me tell you a bit about me. My bio in the book says nothing. It\u2019s just like: This is my first novel. And that was partially, I think, a response to that idea. I\u2019m just going to let this story speak for itself, and these characters speak for themselves, and let people react as they react.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking of the social media age\u2014now that we\u2019re in the present, and things are getting more absurd, and unlike in your book we have Trump and Twitter attacking from all sides, how do people find their identities?<\/p>\n

Oh, god! We\u2019re in a very looking-inward period, but not in a good way, where you\u2019re being introspective and thoughtful. More in a way of turning away from each other. Everything is like an individual sauna. Can I get into a car where there\u2019s no driver? How can we avoid each other as much as possible? I think self-optimization culture has an element of that, where you\u2019re focusing on you and not really thinking of anyone else. One of the themes of this book is, what happens when we look out instead of looking in? What happens when we start to find ourselves in each other? To me, one of the interesting aspects of identity in terms of this book is that many of the people are coming to terms with who they are by relating to other people and finding aspects of themselves in those other people. For all of Belinda\u2019s questionable parenting choices, X does see some of himself in Belinda and does admire some of how Belinda operates in the world. Nathaniel sees in David things he desperately wants to be. So I think there\u2019s something powerful in that, in relating to each other in that way. In this period of looking inward, I wanted to look out. Part of that was having this very wide cast of characters, many of whom are not like me, at least on paper. I\u2019m not in the advice\/counsel-giving business, but I do think there\u2019s something to be said for, in this moment, finding aspects of ourselves in each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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