Fast moving and guaranteed to evoke all emotions, the nine chapters of Off the Canvas takes the reader from the depths of the Great Depression, through the days of segregation and Jim Crow, then into World War II and to the events of today.
These are the recollections of Tony Petrovic, former middleweight champion of the world. At that time there was just eight divisions and one sanctioning body, and his brother Billy, a welterweight champion, The book describs their rise to the top of the boxing world, only to have Billy gunned down by a racist assassin.
Off the Canvas will provoke laughter, tears, anger, hate and understanding. It is a work of fiction that is so historically correct, it actually could have happened.
Although historically correct, Off the Canvas is a fictionalized account of two brothers, whose lives are intertwined until the tragic death of Billy, the younger of the two.
We are taken through this history and these events by older brother, Tony Petrovic, who, at age 80, doesn’t recall as well as he should, but is able to express himself in such a way that once into Off the Canvas the reader will not want to put down this novel till its completion.
