Killer Kowalski Takes the Mat

When in elementary school a P.E. teacher showed Biggie Bluestone the single leg takedown, it was love at first sight. From that moment, Biggie has gradually morphed into the running, lifting, perpetually training fiend that he is today at seventeen, a contender for the 1971 Illinois High School Wrestling Championship. All Biggie wants is to keep the world at arm's length until the state tournament in February, when he'll beat the legendary Rick Berkenmeier, whose photo from the newspaper Biggie has taped to the freezer door.

But the world intrudes. He falls in love with a mysterious girl after her car slides through a stop sign and hits Biggie on his nightly six mile run. His sister, Giselle, is involved in an accident that kills her best friend. The kids at school have ostracized Giselle, and he must find a way to lend her some of the cachet he has garnered as a star athlete. To sharpen his focus, Biggie adopts an alter-ego – Killer Kowalski, a fifties-era professional wrestler with a penchant for throat stomping, though off the mat, reputedly, a genuinely nice guy. 

The massiveness of Biggie's consciousness, accumulated throughout the novel, measures up to the drama of the state tournament, where internal and external forces collide. The result is a novel rich in themes of loss, love, friendship, and dedication—but above all, honor.