Fight Doctor Linda D. Dahl Battles Stereotypes in Tooth and Nail

Linda D. Dahl, one of boxing’s few female fight doctors, delivers a book whose perspective can safely be labeled “distinct.” Informed solely by the ipseity of its author—a half-Syrian, half-Chechen ENT surgeon who grew up in North Dakota—Tooth and Nail tackles not only sexism but racism, classism, alienation, desperation and the practical benefits of cultivating an inner dominatrix. In examining the classic fight to survive with a lens that feels paradoxically universal and unique, Dahl has written a memoir with enough fisticuffs for the fight fan, enough medicine for the scalpel supplicant and enough human drama for anyone who has ever felt alienated.
Dahl’s punchy prose maintains two feet squarely on the ground, plugging away at the challenges she faced in the male-dominated worlds of medicine and boxing (ironically, it is in the former—not the latter—that she seemed to be stymied more). A Midwestern girl dropped into the crab bucket of the Bronx, Dahl describes gaining the vocabulary and the confidence to fit in after watching a fight between Sugar Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya. Through the underdog Mosley’s victory, earned over 12 brutal rounds by a split decision, Dahl writes about discovering the strength she needed in her own life.