Fighting Ruben Wolfe
We get up early and run…
from mz
After The Underdog, I tried to go back to serious writing, but again, it didn’t work. It was all just too sincere, and void of originality.
I was working three other jobs.
(I didn’t do any of them well, always thinking about writing.)
Months drifted by till winter.
I had a title in my head about Cameron Wolfe’s brother, Ruben, taken straight from a Jeff Buckley song called Nightmares by the Sea, where he sings:
The rube is young and handsome / So new to your bedroom floor.
And that’s how things can start: Fighting Ruben Wolfe was initially called The Rube is Young and Handsome, and soon I had a beginning of those boys, underage gambling, and an offbeat conversation with the police.
Clearly, I had unfinished business with Cameron Wolfe and his family. They were the family of my writing life, and a place I was happy to go.
from the publisher
The Wolfe brothers know how to fight – they’ve been fighting all their lives. Now there’s more at stake than just winning.
When the Wolfe family hit hard times, Cameron and his brother fall into the shady world of underground boxing – and the question is, who will come out intact?
A wry, perceptive story, sequel to The Underdog.
final note
Fighting Ruben Wolfe was a breakthrough. Far-fetched as hell, but heartfelt and somehow true. And one big difference from The Underdog, it had more plot:
Two boys try to save their family’s soul by selling their own to the devil. They become embroiled in underground boxing.
It’s funny how these things start, too; as teenagers, my older brother and I used to have one-handed boxing matches in our backyard…I’d fight my brother, then I’d fight his friends. (I never won.)
What happens is a storage of memories, and those memories become the foundations. What if two brothers became involved in fighting for money? What if one of them was really good? And what if there came that moment when they had to fight each other?
I was starting to think like a writer, but still didn’t know what I was doing.