Becoming Muhammad Ali

“I remember everything. You probably would have too. That night was a piece of American history.”

This quote from Lucky in the first introductory section emphasizes that Cassius Clay was an important historical figure. More specifically, it lets the audience know that Cassius’s fight during the 1958 Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago will be important to the novel’s plot. The 1958 and 1959 tournaments bookend the novel, and so Lucky sets out in this quote to both establish himself as the narrator and to draw readers into the novel’s plot.

“You ain’t ready for Cassius, I whispered.”

Cassius inspires everyone around him. Lucky, as the narrator in the introductory prose in each round, is a clear example of this, believing desperately that Cassius is destined to be the greatest, that he has worked hard every day to achieve his goals. His words help build up our belief in Cassius too.

“We traded punches / like baseball cards. / Him, a wild mustang. / Me, a Louisville slugger.”

Cassius’s poems all have rhythm, and those that detail fights work to capture the rhythm of two opponents facing one another. In this instance, Cassius also calls attention to his home, an early connection to the theme of Remembering Who You Are and Where You Came From. Louisville is Cassius’s hometown, and the “slugger” is both a play on words since Cassius is a boxer and a reference to the baseball bats famously made in his city.