Roller Derby The History and All Girl Revival of the Greatest Sport on Wheels Book

Earlier this year Clovis and I were invited by a friend to see his girlfriend jam in the newly-formed Hot Metal Hellions, a local roller derby team. This was a new experience for us; we were surprisingly intrigued by it and found ourselves at the rest of the jams of the season. But we had questions - are they really supposed to skate that slowly? aren't they supposed to be knocking each other down? isn't this crappy floor to be a track? I took it upon myself to try to become more acquainted with the sport, without actually putting myself on the line (although believe me, the idea of joining has crossed my mind more than once.)

It seems our library has a shortage of books regarding the history of roller derby. This DIY-dripping girl-power bling-bling book by Catherine "Jayne Manslaughter" Mabe was the best I could find. It's a recent publication and I wonder in many ways if that accounts for the repetitive nature of the rules of the game, or the rapid-fire glossing over of the initial history of the sport. Granted the subtitle is "The History and All-Girl Revival of the Greatest Sport on Wheels", but I was hoping there would be more history and the spin would be a little more interesting than a breezy (here I grossly paraphrase), "In the beginning the teams were co-ed but now they're not, yay girls."

The entire collection was a little too heavy on the girl-power for me. I believe there is a history here that is fascinating - what I could gather is it started around the Great Depression when entertainment was of the highest value, it was co-ed, and no one was afraid of knocking someone down or getting knocked down in turn. And they could skate.

The revival in early 2000 began in Austin, TX (whoda thunk it?) and that seems to be the important factor of this book. I want to know more than two pages (mostly photos) the Demon of the Derby, Ann Calvello (1929-2006) who was dying her hair purple and sporting tattoos in 1947 and being everything a lady ain't.

The glimmer of hope comes in the very end of the book in which there are references. There are at least four other books regarding roller derby, some of which seem promising for showing me the real history and not just being a literary (I use that term loosely) cheerleader.