‘HEADSHOT’

By Rita Bullwinkel; Viking, 224 pages, $28.

Rita Bullwinkel, who played water polo in college, knows a thing or two about the human body and the abuse it can take.

Bullwinkel brings that knowledge of competition to her debut novel, “Headshot,” which takes place in Reno, Nevada, over two sweltering days in July as eight teenage girls vie for the Daughters of America Cup at Bob’s Boxing Palace, a faded, dusty gym that is far from palatial.

Andi is haunted by thoughts of a 4-year-old boy who drowned in a swimming pool when she was on duty as a lifeguard. Artemis, whose older sisters excelled at boxing, too, worries about not living up to the family legacy.

Bullwinkel gives us “head shots” of the other girls, each with her own weird obsessions and dreams. Bullwinkel’s rhythmic, muscular prose matches the visceral, sometimes stomachchurning material — vicious hits to the face and body, such as “Andi’s nose feeling like cornflakes,” after Artemis’ glove lands between her eyeballs.

Though the story unfolds over just the 48 hours of the tournament, the omniscient narrator projects into the future to imagine the girls’ fates. She is clear-eyed, unsentimental. When Artemis is 60, she will not be able to hold a cup of tea because her fingers have been broken so many times.

In 2018, Bullwinkel made a splash in the literary world with “Belly Up,” a collection of short stories with grotesque, surreal plot twists. Her new work continues in that vein with dark scenes and characters that can be difficult to read. Yet it also feels important because she gives agency to a group of girls who might not otherwise be seen and shows them to us in the full flush of youth, striving for recognition and glory. — Ann Levin, Associated Press

Tommy Orange’s debut novel, “There There,” ended with several bangs and left us wondering if there might be a return to its most memorable characters, among them halfsisters Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and Jacquie Red Feather.

Six years later, “Wandering Stars” is exactly that sequel, just as damning and brilliantly incensed as Orange’s debut, but also much more. It’s a prequel, too, rounding out the history of trauma and addiction in the lineage of a mostly Cheyenne family from as far back as the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre to our pandemic times.

With stories strung together loosely, “Wandering Stars” presents as two books. The first half streams forth with the slow burn of colonial violence, evangelism and erasure; the second half is driven by that trauma’s devastating effects on a younger, multiracial generation living in Oakland, California.

It begins in Colorado when Jude Star escapes from the massacre. He eventually marries a religious Irish woman named Hannah Star.