The Noble Hustle
Poker, Beef Jerky and Death
(Sprache: Englisch)
In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist Colson Whitehead $10,000 for him 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. And so...
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In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist Colson Whitehead $10,000 for him 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. And so begins an epic search for meaning at the World Series of Poker that is at once entertainingly ironic and strangely profound.
Klappentext zu „The Noble Hustle “
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 GlobeIn 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!
Lese-Probe zu „The Noble Hustle “
Excerpted from the Hardcover editionI have a good poker face because I am half dead inside. My particular combo of slack features, negligible affect, and soulless gaze has helped my game ever since I started playing twenty years ago, when I was ignorant of pot odds and M-theory and four-betting, and it gave me a boost as I collected my trove of lore, game by game, hand by hand. It has not helped me human relationships wise over the years, but surely I m not alone here. Anyone whose peculiar mix of genetic material and formative experiences has resulted in a near-expressionless mask can relate. Nature giveth, taketh, etc. You make the best of the hand you re dealt.
This thing draped over my skull and fastened by muscle is also a not-too-bad public-transportation face, a kind of wretched camouflage, which would come in handy on my trip to Atlantic City. Flash this mug and people don t mess with you on buses, and this day I was heading to training camp. I had six weeks to get in shape. I was being staked to play in the World Series of Poker for a magazine, and my regular game was a five-dollar buy-in where catching up with friends took precedence over pulverizing your opponents.
There was no question about taking a bus. I m of that subset of native New Yorkers who can t drive. Every spring, I made noises about getting my license and checked out the websites of local driving schools, which as a species embodied the most retrograde web design on the internet, real Galápagos stuff, replete with frenetic logos and fonts they don t make anymore, the HTML flourishes of the previous century. How could I give my money to a business with so incompetent a portal? My wife and I owned a car, and she drove us everywhere, which came to be a hassle. I used to joke that I was afraid of getting my license--that I was at a point in my life that the first time I got behind the wheel, I d just keep driving. The first couple of times I made this joke, people laughed. Then maybe
... mehr
my delivery began to falter, there was a change in tone, and they d look around nervously, peek over my shoulder for another person to talk to. My wife had the car now. We got divorced four days prior.
I d been looking forward to a descent into some primo degradation to start my trip, a little atmosphere to match my mood, but of course the Port Authority was cleaned up now, like the rest of the city. In the daytime, anyway. Across the street, the shining New York Times tower watched over the entryway, a beacon of truth and justice and Renzo Piano, and inside the terminal corridors the stores were scrubbed nightly, well-buffed, the reassuring and familiar places you ve shopped at plenty. Duane Reade, Hudson News, the kiosks of big banks yet to fail. I could be anywhere, starting a journey to anyplace, a new life or a funeral.
I rushed to make the 3:30 bus and thought I d have to gulp down a hot dog from a street vendor--fearing a grim return of said frank hours later at the table--but had time to pick up an albacore tuna sandwich with dill, capers, and lemon mayo on marbled rye, plus an artisanal root cola, all for ten bucks across the street at Dean and DeLuca. Estimated Probability of Degradation: down 35 percent.
I waited to board and saw I didn t need a public-transportation face. The other passengers queued up for AC were exfoliated and fit, heading down for Memorial Day fun, not the disreputable lot of Port Authority legend. Their weekend bags gave no indication that they contained their owners sole possessions. Where have all the molesters gone, the weenie wagglers and chicken hawks? Whither the diddlers? The only shabby element I registered was the signage at the Greyhound and Peter Pan counters, still showcasing the dependable logos remembered from the bad trips of yore. Returning from a botched assignation or misguided attempt t
I d been looking forward to a descent into some primo degradation to start my trip, a little atmosphere to match my mood, but of course the Port Authority was cleaned up now, like the rest of the city. In the daytime, anyway. Across the street, the shining New York Times tower watched over the entryway, a beacon of truth and justice and Renzo Piano, and inside the terminal corridors the stores were scrubbed nightly, well-buffed, the reassuring and familiar places you ve shopped at plenty. Duane Reade, Hudson News, the kiosks of big banks yet to fail. I could be anywhere, starting a journey to anyplace, a new life or a funeral.
I rushed to make the 3:30 bus and thought I d have to gulp down a hot dog from a street vendor--fearing a grim return of said frank hours later at the table--but had time to pick up an albacore tuna sandwich with dill, capers, and lemon mayo on marbled rye, plus an artisanal root cola, all for ten bucks across the street at Dean and DeLuca. Estimated Probability of Degradation: down 35 percent.
I waited to board and saw I didn t need a public-transportation face. The other passengers queued up for AC were exfoliated and fit, heading down for Memorial Day fun, not the disreputable lot of Port Authority legend. Their weekend bags gave no indication that they contained their owners sole possessions. Where have all the molesters gone, the weenie wagglers and chicken hawks? Whither the diddlers? The only shabby element I registered was the signage at the Greyhound and Peter Pan counters, still showcasing the dependable logos remembered from the bad trips of yore. Returning from a botched assignation or misguided attempt t
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Autoren-Porträt von Colson Whitehead
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.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Colson Whitehead
- 2015, 256 Seiten, Maße: 13 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Anchor Books
- ISBN-10: 0345804333
- ISBN-13: 9780345804334
- Erscheinungsdatum: 23.02.2015
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
An NPR Best Book of the YearAstonishing. . . . 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
"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
[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
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Part memoir, part satire, part meditation on the fractured state of contemporary culture. Los Angeles Times
A masterpiece of sportswriting. The Rumpus
"Shares with [David Foster] Wallace's work the close attention of a wry, sharp intelligence to a populist pastime, a mix of casual and highfalutin diction, a self-deprecating voice that you're never sure is totally truthful in its deprecation, and a fondness for broad cultural pronouncements."
The San Francisco Chronicle
Part memoir, part satire, part meditation on the fractured state of contemporary culture. Los Angeles Times
A masterpiece of sportswriting. The Rumpus
"Shares with [David Foster] Wallace's work the close attention of a wry, sharp intelligence to a populist pastime, a mix of casual and highfalutin diction, a self-deprecating voice that you're never sure is totally truthful in its deprecation, and a fondness for broad cultural pronouncements."
The San Francisco Chronicle
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