The moving story of a young British immigrant who, drafted after Pearl Harbor and stationed in the Jim Crow South, begins to question basic assumptions about his adoptive country—as well as himself.
It’s 1942. Mervyn Gower, a college dropout and wannabe boxer, works as a locker boy at the Beverly Hills YMCA but trains under “Mugsy” Levine—part-time boxing mentor and full-time local gangster—at an LA gym closer to home. Despite Gower’s desire to fit in, he is forced to compete as “The Welsh Kid” and sees being drafted as his chance to prove himself a “real American.”
Assigned to a segregated Army base in the South, Gower finds a very different America from the one portrayed in the movies. It’s punctuated with “Colored Only” signs, civilians forced into internment camps, and better treatment of German POWs than of Black US soldiers.
Inspired by real-life stories and backed by author J. A. Nunn’s thorough research, The Stuff What Actually Is explores the inner life of a young fighter as he recognizes the inequities he encounters, one bout at a time.
Check out the second book in this series, Mud Men.
