Boxer and Ballerina Discover Friendship and Hope in Most Unlikely Place

The Butcher and the Butterfly by Jim Antonini

“A butcher can hit… A butterfly can dance.”

In the boxing world, there are either butchers or butterflies, as Bobby Raymond’s old trainer used to say. The Butcher and the Butterfly, as its title promises, balances the violent with the delicate, the brutal with the graceful, while paralleling two sports that are ruthless on the body, requiring determination and focus. Starring a boxer and a dancer, Jim Antonini’s novel juxtaposes two contrasting characters who have far more in common than they ever expected.

This riveting and heartwrenching story opens as Bobby, the Baltimore Kid, is in the midst of a sold-out boxing match in his hometown. But, as the final minutes of the fight approach, his chances of victory are looking bleak. With a final series of hits using his bruised and bloodied right hand, he wins the fight, but it isn’t the joyous moment everyone else sees it as. 

“All I ever wanted was to be champion of the world.”

“And now?”

“I just want to find my brother.”

Years ago, after a terrible mistake drove brothers Chuck and Bobby apart. Nobody has seen Chuck since he left town. With a dying father and Christmas right around the corner, Bobby makes a tough decision: to step away from boxing and search for Chuck, who is rumored to be living somewhere in New Orleans.

Family Conflict and Growing Tension

Meanwhile, Holly, a ballerina still grieving her mother, is leading a ballet in a sold-out New Orleans theater. At night, Holly works at a gentlemen’s club, owned by her quick-to-anger, overbearing father. There, she faces nightly abuse from the male patrons. And when her father forces her to serve as an escort for brutal wealthy clients, she knows she needs to escape from this life. Of course, that’s easier said than done.

The Butcher and the Butterfly alternates perspectives between these two main characters, who have faced losses that have propelled them into careers of risk. As the two push their bodies to their physical limits, they search for meaning and closure outside of themselves.

When Bobby arrives in New Orleans to search for his brother, a serendipitous moment of fate brings him to an unlikely companion. Holly’s scarf blows away in the wind, and Bobby catches it. The duo spends time together in a local bar. A few short hours later Chuck stops by, just missing them. He’s still in the city, where he has started a new life, but he doesn’t want to be found.

Bobby wanders the city without a plan, showing pictures of Chuck to anyone he comes across, but finding no luck. He fills his nights in New Orleans with drinking, parties, drugs and beautiful women, gambling his money away on card games and horse races, falling for scams, getting lost, and losing hope of finding his brother in time for Christmas. 

The search for Chuck leads Bobby to the strip club, and Holly sees how far a fighter like Bobby would go to defend his friends. Does Holly feel safer having a tough boxer on her side, someone who she may even be able to recruit to protect her? Or will she claw her own way out of the life her father has trapped her in? Eventually, tensions reach a peak — but neither the butcher nor the butterfly will go down without a fight.

Path to Healing, Love and Reconciliation

Though Bobby goes to New Orleans to find his brother, along the way he finds love, support, friendship and a reason to keep going. If he can’t find his brother, can he learn how to find peace within and forgive himself for the accident that caused a rift between them? 

The Butcher and the Butterfly follows several lost souls looking for connection, reconciliation and purpose. Their physical wandering of the city in search of something — whether that be an escape, a brother, or a lover — serves as the perfect metaphor for the imbalance and uncertainty in their lives. It is a quest for something to latch on to beyond the careers, misery and hurt they’ve come to know all too well.

In the characters’ journeys, readers will be witness to the rich diversity of the people and the nightlife of New Orleans, as well as the gritty underside of this historic location. In fact, Jim Antonini’s story emerged from the smoky haze of afternoons spent with his late friend Noel Rockmore at a dive bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The setting of the story provides a special kind of realism, pulling the reader into the story and endearing them to the characters. 

Anyone can see themselves in Bobby, Holly or Chuck, and it’s impossible not to root for them — whether inside the boxing ring or out in the real world, where daily life can be just as brutal, complicated… and worth fighting for.