The Perfect Play, by Louise Wener
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"Something is happening here, and you don’t know
what it is... do you Mr. Jones?" Dylan has a line for everything. The "something" that is happening right now is Texas Hold ‘Em. It has captured our youth: teenagers, boys AND girls, college kids, accountants, truck drivers, moms – you name the group. It is on cable. It was celebrated in Jim McManus’s book Positively Fifth Street. It has partially replaced PlayStation/X-box as the game of choice. Last month I had five AFS foreign exchange students at our house for an all-night poker session talking about "the Flop" and "the River." (The Hold ‘Em part of Texas is doing more for world peace than that other part of Texas in the White House). Take a look at the new book from Louise Wener, The Perfect Play (originally published in the UK with the title The Big Blind – apparently the people at Wm. Morrow publisher don’t think people in the USA know the Hold ‘Em term "blind"). Wener was a member of the former British Punk/Rock band "Sleeper." She is a very talented young woman. The Perfect Play is a funny, hip, touching novel about a young British woman who has an orderly life, a nice boyfriend in landscape architecture, and a broken family. Her father left home to follow the lure of poker when she was very young. Her mother remarried, but died young. Her father never came back even for the funeral. She hates him, but is driven to find him. How? She uses her amazing skill at "maths" to learn Texas Hold ‘Em from a broken down gambling "mechanic" on the lam in London from his USA colleagues who caught him cheating. These poker skills open the casino doors of her father’s past and lead her to truths she didn’t expect. There is much in this quite compelling book about relationships, family, the details of poker, and of course, the seduction of the gambling rush. While it reads quickly, it also has interesting characters (what poker scene does not?) and a telling take on our contemporary world. Wener is good. When you are finished with this novel of hers, go find some old Sleeper albums and take a listen to her lyrics. How many great rock/love songs are there about a "bedhead"? Review by Bruce Jacobs, July 8, 2004
Read Meridith's review of Wener's Goodnight
Steve McQueen:
http://www.watermarkbooks.com/review0405-013.html |