Peter Wood

Surviving

Myself

The Making of a Middleweight

By: Peter Wood

authorpeterwood
authorpeterwood

About the Author

Peter Wood was a New York Golden Gloves middleweight finalist in a bout held in Madison Square Garden in 1971. He later was asked to represent the U.S. in international competition in Montreal and was America’s 1st alternate in the Maccabian Games in Tel Aviv. He has written books, plays and articles in many leading publications. Peter Wood was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame on November 14, 2019.

ABOUT THE BOOK

SURVIVING MYSELF

THE MAKING OF A MIDDLEWEIGHT

Surviving Myself–The Making of a Middleweight is a coming-of-age memoir about a sensitive little sweetheart who throws a dynamite left hook–a punch that catapults him into Madison Square Garden to fight for a Golden Gloves title.

It is also about my fiercely flawed family and our struggles with divorce, drug addiction, alcoholism, a suicide attempt, and juvenile delinquency.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

The Boy Who Hit Back

“I may look like a normal kid, but on the inside I’m busted glass.” Matthew is fighting, stealing, and skipping school. This once popular high school kid is screwing up big time, and his perfect world is quickly unraveling. After his parents divorced and his brother and father went missing, he needed an outlet for his rage. Matthew escapes to the seductive streets of Greenwich Village, where he is fascinated by Sailor Barlow, a mysterious panhandler.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Confessions of a Fighter

Battling Through the New York Golden Gloves

FROM BOY TO MAN, ONE PUNCH AT A TIME Eighteen-year-old Peter Wood’s home life is a battleground. He hates his stepfather, whose vicious comments open new wounds every day. He hates his mother for marrying the guy. And his half-siblings heap even more misery on him at every turn.Tormented and lonely, Peter decides to start fighting back—literally—at a crumbling local gym. Soon boxing becomes a personal ritual. His raging self-hatred makes him train that much harder. His fear of failure gives way to an animalistic intensity. 

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ABOUT THE BOOK

To Swallow a Toad

A powerful autobiographical novel about a confused young man who finds himself in the boxing ring. This is a riveting psychological drama with thrill-packed fight scenes that could only have been written by someone who himself has stood in the ring. This is an emotionally deep account of a young boxer’s struggles inside the ring and out. Wood has a keen eye for detail, a flair for description, an ability to make the reader see the dirty, sordid dressing rooms, and to smell the stench in the gym. 

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A Clenched Fist

The Making of a Golden Gloves Champion

GRABBING A GOLDEN DREAM WITH GOLDEN GLOVES Does boxing teach anything besides how to club someone into submission? Can it transcend its sordid reputation and instill love, compassion and honor in America’s most troubled kids? In this raw yet uplifting memoir about amateur boxing, author Peter Wood tells of his begrudging return to a world he thought he’d left behind. He steps back into the mud of boxing, coaching two troubled teens who dream—as he once did—of becoming Golden Gloves champions

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