In this novella, told through the eyes of Benny Schultz, an old trainer living in a new world that left him behind, we are brought along on a journey of low-level, low-pay, low-reward boxing in northern New Jersey and clued-in to how low-brow advice inside the ring can translate to high-brow advice outside of it.

For the cover, the author wanted to avoid a cliched depiction of a boxer. Looking to the story for inspiration, our cover cooks based the concept on an excerpt from the book: “Benny climbed into the ring. He liked to enter between the 2nd and 3rd ropes not because he was a shorter man, 5’8”, but because that’s how he learned. Teaching this old dog a new trick would have been pointless. It would have been change. Pointless. ” Benny, entering the ring in the form of a yell, replaces his physical presence.

The interplay between the title and the illustrated ring, along with the stark, unforgiving color palette of bright blue and red against pitch black, suits the dark humorous tone. Exuding literary fiction, the cover is completed with the brilliant red blood spilled on the canvas.