1950s, WORKING-CLASS CARLTON
A young boy - skinny, wide-eyed and unlikely - knocks on the door of an ex-boxer. And a backyard gym becomes the training ground of a champion fighter.
The boy from Amess Street worked his way up to beat some of the world's best - to find dignity in the brutality of the boxing ring. And to find a world outside the confines of a home where the dark shadow of a tragic past was ever-present.
Now, he's on the docks, loading and unloading, taking shifts as they come up. Always keen to relive the glorious wins and the camaraderie of the boxing fraternity. But never far from the memory of another fighter, his mother—and her devastating decline into madness.
Observed with a novelist's eye, The Fighter is a perceptive and lyrical account of the life of Henry Nissen - moving and poetic portrait of a compassionate man and the forces that shaped him.