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UNLUCKY

A POKER NOVEL

A dramatically unsatisfying tale, aimed narrowly at poker aficionados.

A young Englishman tries to solve his father’s mounting financial crisis with his poker skills in this novel. 

Tommy Hitchcock’s dad, Alan, is in a heap of trouble. He’s a small-time fisherman whose boat has been impounded, and it’s going to cost him thousands of dollars in fines to retrieve it. He also owes money to loan sharks who are increasingly impatient with him. In an attempt to raise cash for his father, Tommy leaves the small town of Lowestoft, England, for London and lands a job at a department store, working in the fish department. There, he quickly makes friends with two students, Lilly Bookerman (in the books department) and Nick Monroe (in sports), the latter of whom acts as the narrator of this story. Nick comes up with an idea to start a “boat fund” to help Tommy’s dad, and the two friends plan to raise money for it by playing poker. Nick is a novice at the game, but Tommy’s unusually talented, as his father had previously tutored him in poker’s complex nuances. Lilly connects them with her wealthy, card-playing friends, and they quickly graduate to higher-stakes tournaments. As their pile of winnings gradually grows higher, Goodhart (Cards, Kafka and Prague, 2016) describes the games they play. But when Tommy’s victories embolden him to take dangerous risks, Nick becomes concerned. Meanwhile, Lilly is attracted to Tommy’s preternatural self-possession, and their nascent friendship blossoms into a romance. The author’s prose is punchy and clever, driven by sharp dialogue: “You’re the fish nibbling the bait if you’ve got an iffy hand…. Any little unusual movement and you’re gone; be suspicious, try not to get hooked.” Goodhart’s mastery of the machinations of poker is also extraordinary. However, there’s so much play-by-play—granular, complicated renderings of match after match—that the novel may not appeal to readers that don’t already have an abiding enthusiasm for the game. Also, readers may feel that Lilly’s sudden feelings for Tommy are too strong to be believable. Finally, the conclusion is abrupt and peculiar, as if the author simply ran out of steam. 

A dramatically unsatisfying tale, aimed narrowly at poker aficionados.

Pub Date: March 4, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5088-2847-1

Page Count: 252

Publisher: The Gate Press

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2018

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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