The murky world of gambling is impressively portrayed, but as literary drama the novel is underwhelming.
In Simpson’s novel, a sheltered teenager finds freedom in a life of hustling on pool and poker tables.
Slade Garrick grows up in Central Texas, the son of deeply religious Baptist parents who anxiously attempt to control every facet of his life. Both strict disciplinarians, they allow him only fleeting contact with the world beyond his church, and his cloistered existence is only bearable because he believes it’s the societal norm. However, as he grows older, he begins to see that his peers enjoy infinitely more liberty and discovers that the moral righteousness of his parents is often tainted by hypocrisy. His life changes when he meets Arnold Cabraise, a street-smart boy who hustles him in a game of flipping quarters one day. Instead of bristling with indignation, Slade experiences awe at the very notion of hustling, a calculated way to transform a game of chance into one of deliberate strategy. He eventually leaves home and drops out of college to pursue a new life as a pool and poker hustler. When he finally emancipates himself from the prohibitive tyranny of his mercurially violent father, the elder responds predictably, with a surfeit of clumsy melodrama that characterizes the novel as a whole: “Well, you’ll fall flat on your face, boy, you don’t know how easy you have it. I guess you’re gonna go live a life of sin. Don’t think we don’t know what is going on when you’re in the bathroom taking all those long showers. You’re going straight to hell, boy!” Slade is an uncommonly intelligent young man—he has an IQ of 140—but he’s also wildly arrogant, always assuming he’s the smartest person in the room. As a result, he flounders until he meets his mentor, Wild Phil, a local bookie who becomes a father figure to Slade. Phil teaches Slade to approach the hustle with the same analytical rigor with which one would build a legitimate business, and to set his ego aside when money is at stake. Phil drums his guiding mantra into Slade: “You have to lose to win.”
Simpson’s knowledge of this grifting underworld feels encyclopedic, as does his command of the cultural peculiarities of Texas. His devoted gamblers speak their own private language, an “eerie foreign dialect of English,” a fascinating brew of technical terms, colloquialisms, and profanity. The plot moves at a breakneck pace and vividly captures a demimonde that is simultaneously driven by deceit and a code of honor. However, the author’s prose lacks literary style or power—in place of nuanced description, Simpson delivers maudlin overstatement and breathlessly overwrought heavy-handedness. The novel has a didactic quality—clearly, the author, an executive coach, has a lesson to impart (the crux of it is referenced in the novel’s title). This gets hammered home to the reader repeatedly, and by the conclusion of the book it is little more than a cliched chorus.
The murky world of gambling is impressively portrayed, but as literary drama the novel is underwhelming.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9798988092810
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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