Surviving Myself: The Making of a Middleweight

by Peter Wood

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.
My 42,000-word journey is written for anyone who has ever felt fragile, lost, or emotionally inarticulate. It is an uplifting and buoyant tale about a teenager who, despite obstacles, refuses to relinquish his unique dream.
Surviving Myself--The Making of a Middleweight addresses the need for a hard-hitting book about boys. Boys--and men-- will discover themselves on each page, and girls--and women--will find this story a fascinating window into the baffling and bizarre world of the male psyche.
Surviving Myself will appeal to readers About a Boy, Hey Kiddo, The Tender Bar, Hope Was Here, and The Outsiders.
Surviving Myself--The Making of a Middleweight has excellent cinematic potential because everyone was a dream, and everyone is a fighter in his or her own arena,
Peter Wood's first book, Confessions of a Fighter, was optioned for film by Steve Nicoleides, (producer of When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Misery, and Boyz in the Hood.)
Surviving Myself has the same cinematic punch and potential. Think Million Dollar Baby, The Fighter, Fat City, and Rocky.

238 pages, Paperback

Published July 4, 2023

About the author

Peter Wood was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia in 1962. He grew up on a farm called M’sitwe in the Lomagundi area of the country, near Umvukwes, spending the best part of his childhood running barefoot through the untamed bushveld with his brother and sister Duncan and Mandy. It was a wild part of the world and the children were often gone from dusk to dawn, exploring the 13,000-acre property, climbing rocky kopjes, exploring caves and camping along the rivers. Despite a civil war that ravaged the land until the end of white rule in 1980, these were salad days and many of Peter’s and his family’s adventures are described in Mud Between Your Toes.

Peter went to Umvukwes Junior School and then Prince Edward High School in Salisbury (now Harare). After completing oneyear in the Rhodesian Light Infantry he left the country of his birth and moved to London, then on to Hong Kong where he now lives.
He has been granted Chinese nationality and a Hong Kongpassport, but still considers himself African to the core.