The Chief

Front Cover
Harper Collins, Apr 6, 2010 - Young Adult Fiction - 240 pages
A fight for his people.

Sonny Bear, the Tomahawk Kid, has a championship left hook. But his boxing career's going nowhere, and he's ready to hang it up.

Then his manager, tough ex-cop Alfred Brooks, and his "writer," college boy Martin Malcolm Witherspoon, scheme Sonny into a glitzy Las Vegas match. Suddenly he's everybody's darling and headed for Hollywood stardom.

But fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, and Sonny needs to make the fight of his life to decide where he really belongs.

 

Contents

Section 1
24
Section 2
86
Section 3
102
Section 4
122
Section 5
126
Section 6
152
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 47 - But by the third and fourth trips, the stories got old and the Res looked like a raggedy slum of sagging cabins and rusted trailers. Jake's house was a shabby yellow box in a sea of rust and chrome. The Clan Mothers started to sound like nagging grandmas.
Page 26 - Hell be gone for a while. After a long, tough day the tubes and plastic bags that catch his wastes could be backed up, or at least tangled.
Page 165 - I could only be a real friend to Sonny if I wasn't dependent on him, if it didn't matter what he did because I was strong in what I did. I didn't need him to box for me to write. And we both had to come back off the floor.
Page 101 - I tried to think of something to say, but before I could, someone yelled, "It's John L.," and all the cameras swung around.
Page 135 - She reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "End of lecture. Can you afford to take so much time off school?
Page 211 - They called Sonny a young chief, which he certainly was not, of the Iroquois, to which the Moscondaga do not belong, and they had Sonny running to emphasize the exploitation of the Indians since Columbus, whom he has never mentioned.
Page 117 - I thought I was emerging as a character in my own book. Marks was right about that being necessary.
Page 33 - I hope, Professor Marks, you're not saying that because I'm Black I can only write about the Black thang.
Page 34 - I'm here to goose up the program and then ride into the sunset before anyone can shoot back.
Page 117 - Besides, what was Sonny's tragic flaw, other than he didn't know who he was yet?

About the author (2010)

Robert Lipsyte is the author of twelve acclaimed novels for young adults and is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his lifetime contribution in the genre. His debut YA novel, The Contender, has sold more than one million copies. He was an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Times and the Emmy-winning host of the nightly public affairs show The Eleventh Hour. He lives on Shelter Island, New York, with his wife, Lois, and his dog, Apollo.