TO SMITHEREENS

A wild ride through the underground lives of female wrestlers in early 1970s New York.

One day, Rosa—a deliberate naif, on her own since she was 15 and wandering through New York City with all her belongings in a straw bag—is depressed. She decides to wait out the “unhip” afternoon at the movies, but midway through the picture feels a hand on her thigh. This is Rosa’s introduction to Paul Partch—itinerant art critic, fetishist of large, powerful women, ardent wrestling fan—who becomes her midafternoon lover, then her love. Eventually, however, Paul’s need to assert dominance over Rosa in a fantasy version of their relationship, because, as he reasons, “ownership belongs to the creator,” leads him to finagle her introduction to Bobby Fox, the big boss of a veritable stable of traveling lady wrestlers. Rosa, who recognizes Paul’s essentially manipulative nature, decides to go along with the wrestling idea “for kicks” and enters into a complex underworld filled with characters like Lee Darling, the Beautiful Boomerang, a wrestling world washout who rides with the American Legion on the side; Tommy J. Jukes, whose cruel, patriarchal relationship with her female lover repulses Rosa; and Shorty, a loquacious “right-hand man” with dwarfism whose wife and child were “smashed to smithereens” in a car accident years before. These characters, and many more, objectify, oppress, counsel, and care for Rosa, even as Paul, oscillating between sexualized glee at her success and insecurity at her growing distance, tries to pull her back under his dominion. While at times the book shows its age—’70s-era freak show ableism of the Tom Robbins variety rides a gleeful sidecar to the main plot—the buoyant quality of Rosa’s nature, her absolute certainty of her right to her own perspective, and her open embrace of a world that is sometimes actively trying to harm her go a long way toward recentering the reader’s attention to the novel’s real goal: a radical assertion of the power inherent in Rosa, and the rest of us, to defend the identity we’ve chosen to live. The result is a book that is both epic in its energy and intimate in its attention; a much-needed reminder of the enduring, and transformative, power of the weird.

Drexler rises from her corner, ready to fight again!