Description
The companion to Rex Ogle’s award-winning Free Lunch is a searing account of adolescence in a household torn by domestic violence.
Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle, who brilliantly mapped his experience of hunger in Free Lunch, here describes his struggle to survive; reflects on his complex, often paradoxical relationship with his passionate, fierce mother; and charts the trajectory of his stepdad’s anger. Hovering over Rex’s story is the talismanic presence of his unborn baby sister.
Through it all, Rex threads moments of grace and humour that act as beacons of light in the darkness. Compulsively readable, beautifully crafted and authentically told, Punching Bag is a remarkable memoir about one teenager’s cycle of violence, blame, and attempts to forgive his parents—and himself.
Also By: Rex Ogle 
When We Ride: A Novel
Hardback, 2025
Rex Ogle explores bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence in this propulsive novel-in-verse
Road Home
Hardback, 2024
This final, essential chapter in Rex Ogle’s memoir trilogy recounts being forced from his home and living on the streets after his conservative father discovered he was gay
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
Paperback, 2024
Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humour, heartbreak and hope into life-affirming poems that honour his grandmother’s legacy
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
Hardback, 2022
Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humour, heartbreak and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother’s legacy
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
E Book, 2022
Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humour, heartbreak and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother’s legacy
