Stand Tall: Fighting for My Life, Inside and Outside the Ring

In this beautifully told memoir, former amateur boxer Bozella writes about growing up in foster care and his survival on the streets of New York City. Just as he is starting to make a respectable life for himself in the late 1970s, he is convicted of murdering a 92 year-old woman. There’s no evidence he committed the crime, yet he is put away on the testimony of a couple of acquaintances who got immunity deals in return for implicating him. He spends the next 20 years in jail; refusing an early release deal that would have required him to admit guilt. This strong internal compass guiding his decisions makes Bozella a compelling narrator. He decides early on in prison to better himself, and has the strength of mind to follow through. He becomes the boxing champion of Sing Sing, and begins working toward a college degree. He eventually marries while still in prison. When a white-shoe law firm gets word of his story, its lawyers work pro bono, spending over a million dollars to get his conviction vacated. His writing is concise, never self-congratulatory or self-pitying, and always graceful. (Dec.)