He Played For His Wife And Other Stories

Anthony Holden, Natalie Galustian

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781471162282
• eBook ISBN:
  9781471162299

He Played For His Wife…And Other Stories continues a rich tradition of fictional writing on one of the world’s greatest games.

A ghost at the table, a heads-up with Shakespeare, a high stakes stick-up, a hand played on Death Row, tales of pioneers and knaves, even a celestial argy-bargy – each story in this anthology reveals that when it comes to playing poker, no one can hide from their true selves. Whoever you are, you can be sure all your passions and compulsions, your desires, your foibles and idiosyncrasies will be unsparingly crystalised and exposed on the baize. 
 
First mentioned in print in a military history book published in 1836, the game of poker quickly found its way into the modern literary canon. Requiring technical skill and creative fiction in equal measure, poker is the quintessential writer’s game. From John Steinbeck, Bret Harte, Henry James to Damon Runyon, writers throughout the ages have found in poker a natural prism to refract complex human experience. Poker is one of the few sports to have spawned a literature almost as rich and colourful as its own exotic history. 
 
Featuring contributions from Booker Prize-winning novelist D.B.C. Pierre, award-winning playwright Patrick Marber, actor Neil Pearson and poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, He Played For His Wife…And Other Stories is a compelling collection that will appeal to poker fans everywhere.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Preface by Al Alvarez
• Chapter 1: Drawing Dead by Barny Boatman
• Chapter 2: Jack High, Death Row by Grub Smith
• Chapter 3: Once More, Into the Abyss! by Jennifer Tilly
• Chapter 4: Good Luck, Everyone by James McManus
• Chapter 5: Five Tables by D.B.C. Pierre
• Chapter 6: Lady Luck by Lucy Porter
• Chapter 7: The Old Card Room by Patrick Marber
• Chapter 8: Heads Up by David Flusfeder
• Chapter 9: Primero Face by Anthony Holden
• Chapter 10: ‘Mrs Beast’ from The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
• Chapter 11: A Devil in New Jersey by Michael Craig
• Chapter 12: And on the Eighth Day by Shelley Rubenstein
• Chapter 13: Table Manners by Neil Pearson
• Chapter 14: He Played For His Wife by David Curtis
• Chapter 15: The Upper Hand by Grant Gillespie
• Chapter 16: Victoria by Tena Štivičić
• Chapter 17: Jimmy Ahearn’s Last Hand by Peter Alson
• Author biographies
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright and Credits
• Copyright