A tale of big dreams and personalities in a small world, this captures the unique way in which professional wrestlers are both partners and rivals across multiple levels of reality. After some quick cuts of perspective at the start (illustrating the multiple layers of illusion and interpretation in pro wrestling), the book settles into the parallel stories of two wrestling trainees at a local school run by a former star. It’s set in and around Brighton and uses a plausible setup of schools and promotions without too obviously aping any specific real-world groups. Many of the wrestling novels I’ve referred to here have either concentrated on the US territorial era or leaned heavily into genre, be that crime, romance or sci-fi. This is more grounded and is more about wrestling (and specifically wrestling) as a backdrop for people finding confidence, purpose and their place in the world, albeit a self-contained world where the matches themselves may be the least fake aspect of the industry. It’s telling that the story is presented in chapters that on the surface relate to the character’s progression through the different levels of class in their dojo but relate more closely to their knowledge and place…