A HAYMAKER OF AN AMERICAN NOVEL ABOUT A MISSING TEENAGE BOY, CASES OF FLUID AND MISTAKEN IDENTITY, AND THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF BOXING Austin, Texas: It’s the summer of 1998, and there’s a new face on the scene at Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym. Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein has never felt comfortable in his own skin, but under the tutelage of a swaggering Haitian-born ex-fighter named David Dalice, he begins to come into his own. Even the boy’s slightly stoned uncle, Bob Alexander, who is supposed to be watching him for the summer, notices the change. Nathaniel is happier, more confident – tanner, even. Then one night he vanishes, leaving little trace behind. Across the city, Charles Rex, now going simply by ‘X’, has been undergoing a teenage transformation of his own, trolling the phone sex hotline that his mother works, seeking an outlet for everything that feels wrong about his body, looking for intimacy and acceptance in a culture that denies him both. As a surprising and