Overview

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys • “Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world.” —The Boston Globe In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist Colson Whitehead $10,000 to play at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was the assignment of a lifetime, except for one hitch—he’d never played in a casino tournament before. With just six weeks to train, our humble narrator took the Greyhound to Atlantic City to learn the ways of high-stakes Texas Hold’em. Poker culture, he discovered, is marked by joy, heartbreak, and grizzled veterans playing against teenage hotshots weaned on Internet gambling. Not to mention the not-to-be overlooked issue of coordinating Port Authority bus schedules with your kid’s drop-off and pickup at school. Finally arriving in Vegas for the multimillion-dollar tournament, Whitehead brilliantly details his progress, both literal and existential, through the event’s antes and turns, through its gritty moments of calculation, hope, and spectacle. Entertaining, ironic, and strangely profound, this epic search for meaning at the World Series of Poker is a sure bet. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

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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. - Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) As a novelist of considerable range, Whitehead consistently writes about more than he's ostensibly writing about...here writing a poker book that should strike a responsive literary chord with some who know nothing about the game...Engaging in its color and character. - Kirkus Reviews Colloquial, with many personal digressions and heavy on pop-culture references, it reads like a memoir crossed with a literary guide to the often bizarre world of casino-poker tournaments... -The Wall Street Journal [Whitehead's] reporting on the grimy glitz of casinos and competitive gambling has a funny, tragic, loser-chic sesibility. -The New Yorker . . .A witty, wandering book about poker...Tom Wolfe crossed with Tom Pynchon, -The Washington Post Whitehead goes to the table himself, and like a reporter on the front line of battle, he files stories as the action heats up...[Whitehead] uses poker to expand our sense of how human beings work. -The New York Times Book Review Whitehead was rarely lucky - and maybe that's what makes this crass, sardonic tour through America's wasteland of bright lights, overpriced all-you-can-eat menus and windowless banquet hall behemoths so funny. -The Chicago Tribune Mordantly funny from the first sentence...Mr. Whitehead may not have gone home in the money, but he has a way with upstanding sentences. -The Economist . . .Clever and entertaining, and Whitehead employs entertaining throw-away lines that make you think -The Miami Herald Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world. He evokes the physical atmosphere vividly, 'the sleek whisper of laminated pape

Astonishing. . . . Witty. . . . Tom Wolfe crossed with Tom Pynchon. -- The Washington Post The Noble Hustle is fierce, funny and totally worth the buy-in. -- New York Daily News Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world. -- The Boston Globe The Noble Hustle, part love letter, part dark confessional, captures perfectly the mix of neurosis and narrative that makes gambling so appealing. -- Mother Jones [A] trenchant, ruefully funny memoir of one man's attempt to dispel the banality of living with the anxiety of chance. -- USA Today Fascinating. . . . Funny. . . . It's hard not to root for the underdog. -- Chicago Tribune Mordantly funny from the first sentence. . . . Mr. Whitehead may not have gone home in the money, but he has a way with upstanding sentences. -- The Economist Hilarious. . . . Equal parts philosophical and farcical. -- The Seattle Times Clever and entertaining. -- The Miami Herald [Whitehead's] reporting on the grimy glitz of casinos and competitive gambling has a funny, tragic, loser-chic sensibility. -- The New Yorker A literary guide to the often bizarre world of casino-poker tournaments. -- The Wall Street Journal Whitehead captures the sketchy and zombielike nature of poker tournament play well enough to leave you wishing this book came with a free bottle of Purell. -- Entertainment Weekly A sly, shambling, self-appraising riff on how he--a fervent amateur (and newly divorced father)--braved a Las Vegas World Series of Poker tourney. -- Elle From the first sentence to the last, Colson Whitehead never stops being clever. . . . If Whitehead played poker as well as he writes, he would have made the final table. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer Part memoir, part satire, part meditation on the fractured state of contemporary culture. -- Los Angeles Times A masterpiece of sportswriting. -- The Rumpus

Author Information

COLSON WHITEHEAD is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad. His other works include The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and one collection of essays, The Colossus of New York. A National Book Award winner and a recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.

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