Edwin Valero lived a violent life.
On the streets of Venezuela, in the ring, and eventually, in the hotel room where his wife Jennifer Carolina Viera was found dead, violence poured out of Valero; now spilling onto the pages of Don Stradley’s “Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero”.
Like watching Valero fight, reading “Berserk” is a quick, engaging experience. It’s the first entry in the “Hamilcar Noir” series, telling stories from the intersection of boxing and true crime. The tabloid-style cover and title gives the reader an accurate idea of the kind of sensational, gritty prose inside. Stradley’s stylish writing paints a vivid picture of Valero’s descent into madness that’s easy to read, tough to put down, and leaves the reader wanting more.
Wanting more, in fact, is the only real criticism of “Berserk”. It’s too short to be the definitive biography on Valero (75 pages), to fully explain the Venezualen criminal underworld, or to give a completely three-dimensional view of domestic violence in Latin America. The brevity causes “Berserk” to be singularly focused on Valero. Which can make Valero’s victim, his wife Jennifer, a bit of a secondary character. The book, like it’s subject’s career, is enough to hint at what Edwin Valero was capable of without being quite enough to attach anything definitive. But that mystery around his personal life and professional career is largely what makes Valero so intriguing.
For the most part, the book has the reader viewing Valero’s life through the eyes of outsiders. Mostly reporters who covered the undefeated knockout artist. It risks the feeling of a homicide on the evening news with the sleepy neighbor saying, ‘He seemed so normal.’ But avoids the mundane trappings with well-executed writing.
The writing is the star in this book. Don Stradley, who’s written for The Ring Magazine more than 15 years, has a clear understanding of what he’s trying to achieve and the audience he’s writing to. While “Berserk” heavily relies on information previously reported, the approach is something new to Valero’s story and a breath of fresh air in boxing literature. The dedication, “To those who thought they were seeing the next big thing,” shows the kind audience-focused writing Boston-based Hamilcar Publicans is promoting, with its book catalogue entirely dedicated to boxing. If Stradley’s first effort is a blueprint for subsequent Hamilcar Noir entries, “Berserk” won’t be the only book from the series reviewed on this website. (Stradley has also written “Slaughter in the Streets: When Boston Became Boxing’s Murder Capital” for Hamilcar Publications)
Because the author isn’t taking an editorial or activist approach to pigeonholing Valero’s actions into a tidy box, it invites the reader to contemplate what exactly is the lesson in the story. Was Edwin Valero’s deranged impulses the logical conclusion of a street thug surrounded by cash and enablers? Was Valero a case study in the true damage head trauma can cause? Or did a drug-fueled Valero run unchecked through a culture that’s been overly-tolerant of domestic abuse?
As Stradley writes, “Edwin Valero was a Rorschach test made in blood. You can see in him what you want.”
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