Headlock (review)

Kyle Bailey's at the end of his high-school career, and he's just bailed out of gymnastics and into a training program for professional-wrestler wannabes. His outstanding quickness and balance give him an edge over most of the competitors in his class, and in no time at all he's hooked up with the nearly-as-fabulous twenty-one-year-old Ophelia, who's on the rebound from a series of failed romances. Apart from the threats and homophobic smack dished out by jealous rivals, it looks like Kyle's got it made until Chantal, the beloved grandmother who raised him, slides into dementia from a series of mini strokes and he hobbles his rising star to care for her. By taking readers behind the scenes of pro wrestling, Sweeney conjures considerable respect for the sport as part of the entertainment industry, demanding of its performers high levels of skill, daring, and acting ability. Her plotting, however, is strictly sports fantasy, with Chantal's income sufficient to keep Kyle going after graduation on a pizza-delivery job, Kyle's absentee mother arriving on the scene to take over Chantal's care, Ophelia putting up with his deferred dreams, and a fairy-tale ending in which Kyle gets to rub his success in the faces of the bullies while Ophelia wrestles on the same bill (but in lingerie). Any reader with half a wit will realize that happily ever after between codependent Kyle and alcoholic Ophelia is a dicey proposition, but there's some undeniably sleazy charm to the match up.