The Noble Hustle

Starred review from February 10, 2014
The eternal tension between good luck and remorseless odds animates this loose-limbed jaunt through the world of high-stakes poker. Novelist Whitehead (Zone One) was staked to a berth in the World Series of Poker by Grantland magazine, a mission for which he frankly declares himself unqualified, owing to his rather desultory pick-up games, haphazard training regimen featuring yoga lessons, deep and semi-baffled immersion in the arcana of poker-playing manuals, and bus trips to Atlantic City for seedy practice tournaments. His journey unfolds in a series of jazzy, jokey riffs on the cultural detritus of poker: the take-over of the game by young “Robotrons” honed by online gaming; Vegas’s “Leisure-Industrial Complex,” a terrain of soulful soullessness where “your true self is laid bare with all its hungers and flaws and grubby aspirations.” Along the way, poker emerges as the national sport of “the Republic of Anhedonia,” his habitually depressive, fatalistic State of mind that recognizes that “eventually, you will lose it all”—and that playing it safe is therefore the ultimate sucker’s strategy. Whitehead serves up an engrossing mix of casual yet astute reportage and hang-dog philosophizing, showing us that, for all of poker’s intricate calculations and shrewd stratagems, everything still hangs on the turn of a card.

April 1, 2014
An assignment to compete in the World Series of Poker allows the author to meditate on his identity, failings, writing, appetite for beef jerky and challenge to make the leap from decent house player to high-stakes pro gambler. As a novelist of considerable range, Whitehead consistently writes about more than he's ostensibly writing about, turning a futuristic zombie novel (Zone One, 2010, etc.) into a parable of contemporary New York and here writing a poker book that should strike a responsive literary chord with some who know nothing about the game, though for those who want to read a poker book, much of this contextual elaboration might feel like padding. It begins with a definition of "anhedonia: the inability to experience pleasure," preceding the first chapter, "The Republic of Anhedonia," of which the author proclaims himself a citizen and representative. The first sentence: "I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside." He also has an ex-wife, a young daughter, a weekly poker game and an assignment from Grantland to cover the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas as a participant. Even the assignment is something of a gamble--his freelance payment is the entrance fee, and whatever he wins (or, presumably generates in subsequent book royalties), he keeps. But if he loses, as odds are he will, he gets nothing but memories and experience for the article he must write. As he writes of warm-up sessions in Atlantic City, training with his "Coach," competing with more experienced players in Vegas, he sometimes seems to be trying too hard--"Pick your fights like you pick your nose: with complete awareness of where you are"--while drawing parallels between poker and writing ("We were all making up stories, weaving narratives"). Since his narrative doesn't proceed chronologically to a natural climax, he jumps around a bit with time. A minor work by a major novelist, a busman's holiday, but engaging in its color and character.

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Starred review from May 15, 2014
This is not one of those poker books about a gang of math whizzes from Harvard who go to Vegas and win a gazillion dollars. About those guys, Whitehead says, The part of the brain they used for cards, I used to keep meticulous account of my regrets. And, yet, Whitehead has some personality quirks that make him a decent poker player: I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside. A self-described citizen of the Republic of Anhedonia, whose residents are unable to experience pleasure, Whitehead, author of Zone One (2011) and other novels, agrees to enter the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and see how far his half-dead poker face and a $10,000 stake can take him. Not very far, as it turns out, despite reading countless poker books and working with a coach and physical trainer. Yes, he learns a little, but in the end, people, as ever, are the problem. Specifically, those nine other people at the table, their weathered faces showing the underlying narrative of their decay. Yes, Whitehead's account may seem at first like just another sad story about a pair of Jacks, but it's really something very different, much sadder and much, much funnier. He calls his book Eat, Pray, Love for depressed shut-ins, and that pretty much says it, if you remember that the eating part is mostly about beef jerky and the praying is for aces. If you're looking for read-alikes, forget other poker books and pick up Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence (1998).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2014
In 2011, Whiting Writers' Award-winning author Whitehead ("Zone One") attended and participated in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas as part of an assignment for "Grantland" magazine. There was just one problem: he had never before played in a casino tournament. Having only six weeks to prepare, the author began to hone his skills in the casinos of Atlantic City while trying to maintain some semblance of a home life. Hilarity ensued. Whitehead quickly developed a rhythm of dropping off and picking up his kid from school; riding the Greyhound bus to New Jersey with the "day-trippers, day-workers, and hollow-eyed freaks"; gambling; and then returning home to sleep. The author's satirical descriptions and observations of his days spent preparing, filled with playing cards, eating at artery-clogging all-you-can-eat buffets, and his interactions with the people who haunt the casinos there are only prolog for the grand finale of the Leisure-Industrial Complex (LIC) of Vegas. VERDICT Entertaining and absorbing, Whitehead's look at the subculture of gambling and casino tournaments will appeal even to nongambling readers. Also recommended for those who enjoy memoir. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/13.]--Mark Manivong, Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013

Something different from always intriguing MacArthur Fellow Whitehead. A casual poker player, he had a game change when the online ESPN offshoot Grantland staked him $10,000 and asked him to play in the World Series of Poker. Not just about poker; fans brought on board by Whitehead's zombie hustle, Zone One, are expected to show interest.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.