A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

book

Book Review: Irish Thunder (the Micky Ward Story)

Irish Thunder

I’ll admit it — I saw the movie “The Fighter” first.

But the movie and the book, “Irish Thunder — The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward” by Bob Halloran are two different worlds in this situation.

Though the movie is a dramatic interpretation of what’s in the book, it focuses more on Micky’s personal life and early career. It doesn’t stick to the book and show more reality.

The book is better than the movie by far. And, the book takes you to the end of Micky’s career, which the movie doesn’t. How you can do a movie on Micky Ward and not include the Arturo Gatti trilogy is beyond me.

As for the review…

I know I usually break it down into “The Good,” “The Bad,” and “Overall,” but with this book I thought my feelings of good and bad meshed a bit, so I’m going to give it as one big review.

Overall

If you’ve read a police report or a crime novel, then picture that style telling the story of Micky Ward, one of the most amazing people in boxing. The story is decent and it kept me interested. It was, after all, a subject that I enjoyed. Yet, it lacked something. It’s hard for me to put a finger on what exactly. But as much as I wanted to love this book, I couldn’t. I did, however, like it a real lot.

Micky Ward is simply an incredible story. From his upbringing to his early goings in boxing to a late-career surge with the Arturo Gatti trilogy, this is a pretty solid read. It gives pretty interesting details on his brother, Dicky Eklund, and several other players during his career, which spanned over three decades.

There are details about fights and insight into Micky’s mind and thought process. Boxing at the old halls with the smoke just staying stagnant. The battling from the lower card to the upper card. The ups and downs of his career and what he had to go through to get to the top. Heck, he retired once and came back. And he lost the fight that seemed like it would have been the one to save the career. But in the end, all paths lead him to Arturo Gatti, which was one of the most amazing three-fight series of all time.

The description of the Gatti fights is pretty solid and you really have to scratch your head wondering what those two were thinking (or not thinking) putting themselves through all that punishment. I felt his descriptions, with the blood and guts attitude of the fighters, came out well in the book. I saw the three fights, but most of Halloran’s descriptions brought me back to those fights.

As I said, the beginning part of the book was a little police like in the book read like a crime report. Though that style continued for much of the book it became a little less so as the book went on, making it much more tolerable.

Micky Ward is a throwback fighter and this book does a good job showing that. I’d highly encourage any boxing fan or anyone interested in reading a story about a long shot to check this book out.

Rating

In the end, because most online places where one reviews don’t have half stars, I gave this a 4. That being said, if it was allowed, I’d have given a 3.5. So, here on HooHaa, it’s a 3.5.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

What’s next with the pen and paper?

Since getting laid off back in February, I’ve really embraced my blog. I’ve made an effort to write something every day with the idea that I want to keep writing — to keep sharp and to be able to have ideas flow.

At times (such as today), it’s been tough.

Though I have a list of ideas I keep and check in on at times, there are just times I don’t feel like writing. Or I start and can’t flow (again, such as today. I wiped three posts out earlier as it didn’t work for me).

But one of the main reasons I’ve been doing this is to force myself to write everyday to try and get myself ready for a bigger project — writing a book.

I don’t plan on having the next New York Times best seller by any chance. But I’ve always wanted to write a book. I have the idea and I’ve written down a rough copy of an outline. I’m going to tweak that some and soon start on the big project.

But…

When writing a book, everything I have read points to making sure you write every day. It make sense, too. You don’t want to get flowing for a couple of days and then have a block and put it aside only to have that continue. Forcing yourself to write every day makes sure you get something down on paper, even if you decide to get rid of parts as you continue to write.

That being said, I’ve had a harder time with the outline and the basis of the story. I know the beginning. I know the characters. I know the ending. It’s the middle that’s screwing with me. I have ideas, but I just can’t seem to get things right in my head on shaping the story. I think it will come, however. I don’t really want to start the project until I know what direction I can go with it.

I do know I can handle this project. Several years ago, I wrote a full screenplay (still hidden away, re-written twice and one day possibly an attempt to sell it…). In the end, I want to self-publish my book and probably submit it to Amazon to be used on the Kindle. I don’t expect to make a lot, if any, of money on this book, but I want to do this as it’s something I’ve wanted to do.

That’s my next step.

But for now, I need to keep finding ideas for this blog. It’s giving me my daily writing, which is much needed!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.