A book review of He Played For His Wife and Other Stories: Short Stories of Long Nights at the Poker Table, a collection of poker tales featuring the likes of Barny Boatman, Jennifer Tilly, and D.B.C Pierre.
Choosing Starbucks as my place of work seemed a good idea until Christmas rolled into town with all the airs and graces of someone stepping over bodies looking to find the pisser in a drunk tank.
Christmas Carols on repeat.
Starbucks has become Guantanamo Bay.
And to make matters worse, each Do They Know It’s Christmas riff reminds me of the absurdity of knowing it’s Christmas and still not buying a single present with only six days left until the big day.
Maybe I’ll buy everyone a copy of He Played For His Wife and Other Stories: Short Stories of Long Nights at the Poker Table, Edited by Anthony Holden and Natalie Galustian and be done with it.
This week I decided to read one book a week for 52-weeks. I’ve done it before, all non-fiction, and it solidified a reading practice that has fallen apart like my dad watching The Champ.
Part of my problem is time, so when Barny Boatman asked me to read He Played For His Wife, I sighed. I don’t like poker books because they’re all crap. And if I read a poker book, then I can’t read anything else. Only that’s not true, and here’s the other problem I have developed with my reading routine – I can’t concentrate on one book.
It’s ok; I don’t need an acronym and medication. I know I’m not going to read every book I want to before I end up being burned and scattered, so if I stumble across a chapter that bores me, I’m done with it.
There’s a pattern with books.
It’s the same with American comedies.
They begin brightly, the middle is ok, and the ending is shit.
He Played For His Wife – which, incidentally, is what I used to tell my ex-wife everytime I lost (the divorce papers said I loved poker more than her) – began more than brightly. It hit me like the sun in the face of an overzealous airline pilot searching for a suntan.
It was Barny’s piece Drawing Dead.
It was that good; the former Hendon Mobster had me reconsidering my belief that ghosts are people from the future who have developed the ability to travel back in time via a hot tub.
It’s that good; I feel slightly nervous writing this because I know he will read it, and the bar steward has hurled me back into the imposter syndrome shadow that I thought I had sent to boarding school.
If Boatman ever decides to stop larking about, acting like a big kid, travelling around the world, playing a game, and getting paid for it, he has a career as a writer.
I have always had an inkling.
His 140-character gems on Twitter always promised an explosion of colour. His story didn’t disappoint. Every line dripped with perfection. I had this vision of him, glasses perched on his beak, pen dangling from his bottom lip like a fag, fingers riffling ACF chips he never cashed in before the gaff closed down, pondering and pouring thought over each sentence.
He is a humble man.
He is a talented man.
He is a seriously studious man.
I loved it.
And then I felt sorry for everyone else. How could anyone else come up with the goods? It was like following Sir Alex Ferguson at United or following Bill Burr in your local shit-show of a comedy club.
And that’s how it turned out.
I got as far as Five Tables by D.B.C.Pierre (which was also utterly brilliant) and decided to bow out on a high.
So you don’t get a full review. I never finished the book. I warned you. I have a problem. But it’s worth the few bob just to allow Barny Boatman to save you from the ghost of Christmas past, present and future by sharing a piece of gold about a ghost of his own.
