Dealer’s Choice

Abstract

Robert Singer reviews Peter Alson’s The Only Way to Play It (Arbitrary Press), a novel about Nate Fischer, a family man who plays in New York City’s underground poker games. Placing it beside gambling fiction by Dostoyevsky, Nelson Algren, and Mario Puzo, Singer praises Alson’s ear for regional dialogue, his descriptive energy, and his portrait of Brooklyn, and finds the flawed protagonist oddly sympathetic. He notes the novel’s blend of domestic routine with the occasional violence of the underground games and closes by crowning Alson poker’s new novelistic champion.