Dark Trade

No boxing book collection is complete without the classic, award-winning, Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing. With this updated edition, brought to the United States for the first time, the original cover art by fine artist Amanda Kelley, depicting James "Lights Out" Toney, a central figure in the book's gripping narrative, makes this a gorgeous and essential addition to any boxing fan's collection. "McRae brings to the highly charged, obsessive world of professional boxing a novelist's eye and ear for revealing detail and convincingly recalled dialogue. This is an impassioned book."-Joyce Carol Oates, LA Times "At the heart of this engaging and eloquent work...is McRae and his intriguing attempts to explain his 'seemingly illogical but enduring love' of boxing."-Kirkus Reviews Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing, by Donald McRae, award-winning author of twelve non-fiction books and staff writer for The Guardian, is widely considered of one of the best boxing books all time. This is a new edition, released in the United States for the first time, that includes a new chapter by the author, plus a stunning cover that features a painting of boxer James Toney by noted boxing artist Amanda Kelley. There is no other sport like boxing. Over twenty years ago, Donald McRae set out across the United States and his adopted home, Britain, to find deeper meaning in the brutal trade that had transfixed him since he was a young man. The result is a stunning chronicle that captures not only McRae's compelling personal journey through the world of professional prizefighting, but also the stories of some of its biggest names in boxing-James Toney, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Oscar De La Hoya, Naseem Hamed, Roy Jones, Jr., and others. Singular in his ability to uncover the emotional forces that drive men to get into the ring, McRae brilliantly exposes the hopes and fears and obsessions of these legendary fighters, while revealing some of his own along the way. What he shares with them most, he comes to realize, is that he is hopelessly, and willingly, lost in boxing. Table of Contents Introduction 1 The Baddest Man 2 The Force 3 This Is Boxing, Baby 4 Oscar's Night 5 The King and the Prince 6 Guns and Fathers 7 Looking on Darkness 8 Death and the Man 9 The Cinderella Men 10 The Soldier Boy 11 Nothing Is Forever 12 The Beacon 13 The Bite 14 Fading Away 15 Still Lost in Boxing Acknowledgments

Donald McRae is an award-winning author of eleven non-fiction books which have featured compelling boxers, pioneering heart surgeons, and legendary trial lawyers. He has twice won the UK's William Hill Sports Book of the Year for Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing and In Black White: The Secret History of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. McRae is a three-time Interviewer of the Year winner and he has twice won the Feature Writer of the Year for his work in The Guardian - most recently in 2018. Having been born and raised in South Africa, McRae's writing career began when, aged 21, he started a music magazine while working as a white teacher in the black township of Soweto. This led to him being offered work in London - and over the last thirty years his writing has been as versatile as it has been commended. His books have been praised consistently for their intimacy of tone and breadth of research as he draws the reader deep inside the heads of his extraordinary subjects. Whether writing a memoir of life under apartheid, a sporting biography or riveting drama set in the courtroom or surgical theatre, the humanity of Donald McRae's characters is always evident.

Introduction........1 1 The Baddest Man........21 2 The Force........45 3 This Is Boxing, Baby........83 4 Oscar's Night........121 5 The King and the Prince........147 6 Guns and Fathers........173 7 Looking on Darkness........209 8 Death and the Man........235 9 The Cinderella Men........273 10 The Soldier Boy........305 11 Nothing Is Forever........347 12 The Beacon........389 13 The Bite........437 14 Fading Away........463 15 Still Lost in Boxing........483 Acknowledgments........533