The Last Bell

‘As with the sport itself, boxing writing is about so much more than physical combat – it’s about the dark drama of life and death in their totality. That Donald McRae understands this implicitly makes him one of the very best writers working today. I’ll read anything he turns his hand to.’   -- Benjamin Myers, author of <I>The Offing </I>and <I>The Gallows Pole</I> ‘If Dark Trade was about one man wanting to find out what it is to fight and how it feels to lose, The Last Bell is about a man who is now familiar with these things through personal experience using boxing as a reminder that he is not alone in feeling the emotions attached to them.   McRae’s eyes may be wearier and slightly narrower now, but when you see modern-day boxing through them there is a surprising and refreshing clarity to be found. It is a clarity hard to find anywhere else these days and McRae, 29 years after Dark Trade, continues to write about boxing with an elegance, intelligence and maturity and again delivers the definitive text on where we are today. The Last Bell is a book plenty of people need to read but only one person could have written.’    -- Elliot Worsell, <I>Boxing Scene</I>, author of <I>Dog Rounds: Death and Life in the Boxing Ring</I>  'Donald McRae enjoys what boxing fans will hope is not one last successful run in the sport, chronicling it with the passion, depth and colour that only he can. The Last Bell is a personal look at the sport through a human lens and at the business of boxing with a critical eye and it shows how different both parts are. McRae proves, once again, that he is one of the great sportswriters of his time while reminding boxing fans how lucky they are to have him.' -- Tris Dixon,<I> Boxing Scene</I>, author of <I>Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing</I>