The Pugilist and the Sailor

“This book is so strangely moving and truly funny and sad and beautiful. An impressive debut from a writer already in possession of a unique voice.”—Miriam Toews

“Bruce and Dougie are conjoined twins—one a fiery boxer, the other a dreamy bookkeeper. Inseparable by birth but diverging in desire, they share a body, a home, and a tangled history of longing—for solitude, for love, for a different kind of life. A deeply intimate, character-driven novel about family, yearning, and the aching complexity of connection, The Pugilist and the Sailor is a story of bodies that defy definition, and the invisible lines that bind us—through time, through blood, and through the stories we carry.”—Carrianne Leung, author of That Time I Loved You and The Wondrous Woo

The Pugilist and the Sailor follows conjoined twins, Bruce and Dougie. Dougie is an ambitious amateur boxer, having dragged his brother into the ring since childhood. Bruce is a bookkeeper who has become smitten with Anka. Unaware of the facts of the twins’ physicality, an epistolary relationship unfolds between Anka and Bruce, as he wrestles with broaching the topic of separation with Dougie. Dougie’s sole focus is the Heavyweight Amateur Boxing title as one half of “The Reuben Beast,” though he is trying to ignore his mysterious blackouts and severe headaches.

A character-driven story with an ensemble cast, told across multiple points of view and time periods, The Pugilist and the Sailor examines the unique relationships between conjoined brothers, parents, crushes, and unexpected mentors. A story about the intertwined nature of longing and belonging, compromise and connection, this novel is ultimately a consideration of family and finding your unique place in it, and in the world.

Nadia Ragbar lives in Toronto with her partner and son. Her short fiction has appeared in Broken Pencil and This Magazine, among other outlets. Her flash fiction appeared in The Unpublished City, an anthology curated by Dionne Brand, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Toronto Book Award. The Pugilist and the Sailor is her first novel.