I have a pile of books on my bedside table.
Some of them are waiting to be read for the first time. Some of them have been half-read and put down momentarily, with Amazon receipts used as temporary bookmarks. Others have been read a number of times but somehow keep avoiding being put back on the bookshelves.
I’ve read Wrecking Machine (affiliate link: UK
The Wrecking Machine
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Why’s that then?
Wrecking Machine is very similar to The Escape Artist in a number of ways.
On the face of it, it’s hard to see. The Escape Artist was about competitive cycling and the Wrecking Machine is about white-collar boxing: two sports about as far away from each other as you can imagine.
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Yes they are. Are you clutching at straws, here?
Not at all.
Firstly, they are both about a man’s obsession with an amateur sporting pastime and how that obsession relates to his life.
Secondly, they are both written by journalists who enter their chosen sports and write about them from the inside. They write about the participation in the sport and they write about how the sport changes them.
Finally, they both describe moments in the writers’ lives that all of us can relate to and yet hope we never have to face. Terrible events that test the strength of a man.
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Go on. How are they different?
In The Escape Artist, the main question asked by the book was how the writer managed to justify and fit cycling into a life that was growing ever more difficult and challenging. In some ways, the cycling was seen as a tempting luxury that the writer felt guilty about indulging in, with a nod being grudgingly given to the psychological benefits.
The Wrecking Machine doesn’t so much ask a question as make an apology for the psychological benefits of engaging whole-heartedly in the sport of amateur white-collar boxing.
In fact, the phrase “wrecking machine” doesn’t refer to the author’s prowess in the ring but rather his much-lamented ability to destroy his career, his family and his relationships through irresponsible behaviour and alcohol. Taking up boxing is held up as the single thing that drives an undisciplined and rudderless man towards stability and self-control. It’s practically therapy, apparently.
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OK, so what happens?
Alex Wade, the author, was originally a high-flying solicitor until he got drunk and his temper got the better of him in a very violent and embarassing way that culminated in the demolition of a public convenience. He had to resign his job and took up night-legal work for The Times, where he read the stories for libel before they got published the following day.
While doing this libel work, he started writing articles as a journalist. One of his first articles was about white-collar boxing. As he began interviewing people, he was sucked into the life and before he knew it, he had a fight booked with the current world white-collar light middleweight champion and a regular column in the Independent on Sunday called “The Slugger”, the name he would later fight under.
As his started training for the fight, he realised how the alcohol and cigarettes have been poisoning his body and he left them behind, albeit with a few relapses. His attitude changed and, paradoxically, his temper, which had been the bane of his life, stops pushing him into violence.
Somehow, the confidence that boxing instills has fed through into his subconscious. When an altercation on the football field caused an opponent to strike out at him, he remains still and eerily calm. He knows he can handle himself and he no longer feels the need to prove it. He has proved it. He has stood his ground in the ring. He has found pride and yet not descended into arrogance. He has found, at last, a measure of peace.
The account in the book takes us through the preparation for a number of fights and the fights themselves. We meet a variety of colourful and genuine characters, well-described and human in their qualities and flaws. None of them has “the answer”. There are only things that help and things that hinder and, ultimately, people just being people.
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So why should I read it, again?
It’s a well-written account of a turning point in a man’s life. It’s a description of what happens when someone finds the key to unlocking the strength they need to reassert control over their own life and emotions. It’s about a man’s obsession with the sporting pastime and how it relates to the rest of his life.
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