Novel News -- Obsessica eBook is out!

Am all settled at the Rio where the first couple of Day 1 flights of the World Series of Poker Main Event have already played out. Already had some fun interviews and other items of interest -- will report soon.

Just a quick note to share that the eBook version of Obsessica is now available! It’s good for the Kindle and other devices. Those who buy a print version of the novel should also get access to the Kindle version for free, or so I understand it.

I was writing here not too long ago about how I still can’t quite think of “novels” as being something other than those physical objects with hard or soft covers and words printed on pages that we hold and look at for a few hours or days or weeks.

I know to say such things is to sound irrational (or just plain stubborn). It’s a silly thing to insist upon, something belonging in the category of useless complaints about how the present ain’t the past.

As I’ve mentioned before, Obsessica is a book set in the past -- an adult narrator looks back on something that happened when he was a kid in 1980 -- and so kind of exemplifies that same desire to go back and experience that time and all of the “old” things that marked it.

There’s even some talk about books in there, despite the fact that the narrator makes a point to say early on that he isn’t much of a reader (or writer, for that matter). The House of the Baskervilles and the Guinness Book of World Records turn out to be two important books, and also are meant to serve as extra-textual “secondary” sources for the novel, in a way, that point to certain themes.

Like I say, though, I’m fully aware that nostalgia for books is a kind of folly. And of the irony of my indulging in it while writing on a blog, and spending just about every other waking moment writing for online-only outlets.

Anyhow, you e-reader types -- go check out my novel. I’ve heard it’s kind of a page-turner. Or screen-scroller.

A Captive Audience

Did something kind of unusual on the plane ride back from Barcelona yesterday.

It was about a nine-hour flight, perhaps a little more, starting in the morning and ending around dinner time. Sleeping wasn’t an option, really, although I don’t ever do that well trying to sleep on planes. If it’s a redeye I’ll usually can at least rest my eyes for an hour or two, but in truth I never really zonk out, even if I happen to have a row on which to stretch.

I started out watching one movie -- David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence -- which I hadn’t seen before. I’m up on practically all early and mid-period Cronenberg, and also being a noir fan I ended up enjoying this one, even if it turned out to be a little awkward watching certain scenes there in an aisle seat where those behind me could watch as well, if they wished.

Against Cronenberg’s earlier stuff, of course, it played as a little more restrained. Meanwhile when compared to the noir tradition the story, situation, and characters followed, it read as a modern, more graphic update. Certain elements of the latter act (in particular William Hurt’s character) seemed over the top, but by then that fit well enough in the somewhat stylized world being presented.

Finishing that as well as the in-flight meal, I scrolled around and dialed up another movie to watch -- The French Connection (which I have seen, long ago) -- but within 10-15 minutes I couldn’t keep focused on it and switched it off, opting for some music instead. Then after sitting there a bit I pulled out my laptop.

During a conversation with Jack (my buddy and blogging partner) early in the two-week poker festival I’d brought up this draft of a novel I have. Same Difference had been essentially written well prior to my getting into poker (and starting this blog in 2006), and I only published it in 2009. Meanwhile this new novel was written subsequently, the first draft of which was completed around three years ago. I revised it a couple of times -- the file is marked “3rd draft” -- but hadn’t opened it back up since earlier this year.

I opened it there on the flight and began reading. Got through the first several chapters and kept going, then eventually was approaching the midpoint. Finally at some point I realized I was ready to read the whole sucker, and doing some math realized I’d be able to finish it before we landed which I did. Was perhaps seven hours of reading, I think -- the book’s novel-length but on the shorter side (around 70,000 words).

I don’t think I’d ever read it through in one sitting like that, and it was satisfying to do so. Like the first novel it’s essentially a murder mystery, although not a detective novel and draws much more on my own experiences than did Same Difference which is set in New York City in the mid-1970s. This one is also set in the past, with the story starting in 1979 and ending in 1980, but takes place in a setting essentially pattered after my hometown with a boy protagonist/narrator of my same age then.

I tinkered just a little as I went, but not much as the draft had been pored over many times already. I remembered certain sections I’d cut, glad they were gone in this version. A couple of plot points have been altered from the initial version, too, though a lot of it is still there.

The experience made me eager to begin the process of publishing it, something I’d like to before the year ends. In fact, I have another creative project of sorts I’m going to “publish” (so to speak) later this week, in fact, that falls under the same heading of me wanting to share something I’ve done rather than keep it to myself. For a couple of reasons, I’ve been feeling a lot of this “life-is-too-short-to-wait” pressure over the last few weeks, which is partly why I want to move ahead with these things.

Traveling will inspire that feeling sometimes. While in Barcelona I had a conversation with Brad (also my buddy and also my blogging partner) about watching movies on planes. On the surface, it seems less than ideal to watch these things on relatively small screes on the backs of passengers’ seats. But as Brad pointed out, the audience is uniquely captive, free from the endless distractions that mark our lives when we aren’t 30,000-plus feet in the air.

Coupled with being away from loved ones (if you’re traveling alone), that can make viewers especially receptive emotionally (we agreed), causing us to be more readily affected by certain films -- something both he and I have experienced before.

I can’t say A History of Violence moved me too deeply, although it had its moments. Meanwhile it might have been that being on the plane, all alone and in a relatively unique state of mind, affected me as I read through my novel again.

Doesn’t matter, I guess. Same difference, as they say.

Gonna get moving on this thing. More to come.

Image: “Plane” (adapted), Alper Çuğun. CC BY 2.0.

Slow Down… Brad Willis Has Some Stories to Tell

We’re already a week-and-a-half into December. Wait a minute... it’s already December!?! I guess so, as we’re careening toward the holidays and the new year and wherethehelldoesthetimego?

I got back to the farm from Brazil on the last day of November, but in truth I feel like I’m just looking up now to see we’ve reached the 10th already. In fact, here in the kitchen I’m realizing we haven’t even turned the last calendar page up yet on November. Gotta take care of that next time I pass by it, if I have time.

Part of it is just getting older, I know. It happens to all of us that with each passing year our temporal awareness (for lack of a better way to refer to the concept) alters by another degree or three. Could be because each new year necessarily represents a smaller fraction of our lives, or maybe it has more to do with the brain refusing to keep growing once we reach a certain point not long after young adulthood.

Then there’s “poker time,” with which I think most reading this blog are plenty familiar. So much is happening all at once, the weeks and months tend to fly by as a result. I was just recently tasked with making another one of those “top poker stories” of the year lists, something which I swear feels like I was just doing.

That said, there are little pockets here and there within the poker world -- and the world at large -- where we really can slow down and think a little more deeply about what is happening. During these first 10 days of December I’ve found a couple of them, both connected with my friend and colleague Brad Willis who heads up the PokerStars blog.

Brad is in Prague at the moment with the EPT festival, producing (as usual) interesting features related to the events that have happened thus far along with Nick Wright, Stephen Bartley, and Howard Swains.

Speaking of features, after getting back from Brazil I finally had a chance to read through Brad’s lengthy four-parter he wrote for the Bitter Southerner website titled “BUST: An Insider’s Account of Greenville’s Underground Poker Scene.” It’s a gripping narrative -- really a novella -- that takes as its starting point a relatively peaceful underground poker game in South Carolina from 2010 interrupted by a police raid and some jarring-by-contrast violence.

Brad tells that story while also filling the broader context of poker’s past and present in the Palmetto state, and by extension the game’s often paradoxical place in American culture, generally speaking. He weaves in stories of other poker players of varying levels of ability and dedication, and toward the end also incorporates his own life in poker, kind of taking a seat at the table himself among the characters he has sketched for us.

It’s an enlightening tale, and one well told, too. For anyone with an interest in poker (and good writing), it’s worth slowing down for a while and enjoying. I’m realizing how it could actually could fit on my “Poker in American Film and Culture” syllabus, and in fact I might slip it in there the next time I teach it as it complements (and builds upon) some of the ideas we discuss in that course.

I also found some time last weekend to hear Brad appear as a guest on a recent episode of the Thinking Poker Podcast hosted by Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis. They’re all the way up to 150 episodes, which is quite an achievement, and I’ll admit to vainly enjoying the memory of having appeared on TPP way back on one its very first shows more than three years ago. (Wait a minute... three years -- already!?!)

If you don’t already know Brad, listening to the show will work as a good introduction, I think, although even though they talk for over a half-hour there’s obviously a lot more to his story. Besides sharing a lot of common interests with Brad (poker, reading, writing, music), I feel another kind of affinity with him thanks to the parallel way his life took a detour from a “normal” job (as a news journalist in television) to become a “poker guy.” When he describes how he experienced that change on the show, you can imagine I’m doing a lot of nodding in agreement.

Thanks to Andrew and Nate’s thoughtful questions, Brad also delves into nature of poker reporting as it has evolved over the last decade or so, giving listeners a lot to think about when it comes to the reasons why a lot of us came to love poker in the first place.

Check out the show to hear what he says and decide for yourself if it is indeed the people and the stories that make poker a special game. And if you agree, definitely read Brad’s story on Bitter Southerner and get to know how poker shaped the lives of a number of interesting people (including Brad himself).

And if you don’t think you have time... well, try to figure out a way to slow things down a bit and enjoy these stories, anyway.

One Thing Leads To Another

From the house to the car to the plane to the car to the hotel I went, and here I am. Again

It was a super quick flight down to Jacksonville late yesterday afternoon. I think we weren’t in the air but for an hour at most, meaning it took much longer just getting to the airport and then again getting all squared away with the rental car to drive to my home-away-from-home for the next few days just down the road from the bestbet Jacksonville.

I’m reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 on the Kindle currently, knocking out another portion of the lengthy book yesterday to close in on the finish. I read every King novel there was as a teenager, meaning everything up through Pet Sematary (including the Bachman books), I think, then didn’t pay too much attention to his fiction thereafter, although I did enjoy his book about writing. Kind of like digging a band’s early records as a young person, then leaving off after both you and the band get older.

You might remember I was talking about rereading Don Delillo’s Libra on a trip back in the spring, another speculative fiction about the Kennedy assassination. Since the 50th anniversary almost a year ago, I’ve gotten myself kind of hooked on JFK-related materials, including the endless trove of videos on YouTube both about the assassination and its coverage and all of the aftermath, theories, and other ephemera. An event the elusive truth of which will always be more head-spinning than any fiction that treats it.

King’s book isn’t nearly as “literary” as Delillo’s, of course, although it’s kept me turning the pages. I like much of it thus far, and have even found a couple of moments quite moving (particularly early on). The time-travel conceit is interestingly handled, encouraging a lot of “What would I do?” kind of thinking along the way.

Perhaps because the main character is an English teacher, I’m identifying with him a bit more than I would otherwise. That may also be a reason why I’ve found myself occasionally thinking along the way about how all forms of fictional storytelling -- and reading -- are kind of like “time travel” (and/or “place travel”), if you think about it.

There are frequent references to the butterfly effect as this 2011 man wanders about during the late 1950s and early 1960s, a concept that often occurs to us during poker tournaments where every action has at least a small effect on everything else. There’s also some gambling here and there as the protagonist places some bets on the World Series and other sporting events -- sure things, because he actually does know their outcomes.

I’m eager to finish the book, but will have to set it down for the next few days as I’m again going to be working some long ones as the WPT bestbet Bounty Scramble plays out. I’ll be stopping in here to add a few tidbits about that story over the next few days, too.

Such is the chain of circumstance I find myself following, one that I control only somewhat.

On Philip K. Dick's Time Out of Joint

While traveling to and from Deauville I took along a copy of Philip K. Dick’s 1959 novel Time Out of Joint. It’s a book I first read long, long ago, but have thought about a lot ever since. In fact, looking back through the blog I notice I mentioned it a few years ago as belong to a list of books that “for whatever reason, stand out in my mind.” I bought a copy at the Labyrinth Bookstore in Princeton prior to the France trip and took it along, and finished it on the way home.

Like all of Dick’s novels and stories, the premise of Time Out of Joint is inventive and thought-provoking. In this case, a middle-aged ex-vet named Ragle Gumm finds himself living with his sister and brother-in-law in an ordinary ’50s neighborhood. Gumm has no job per se, but makes a decent amount of money each month by winning a daily puzzle-solving contest in the newspaper, something called “Where Will The Green Man Be Next?”

The story proceeds in a fairly mundane, realistic fashion for the first third or so of the novel, then a few strange things occur that lead Ragle to believe either something is wrong with the world as he knows it or perhaps he is going insane. He finds what seems to be a current phonebook but all of the numbers are disconnected. He also reads a story in a magazine about a beautiful contemporary movie star named Marilyn Monroe, but neither he nor his sister and brother-in-law have ever heard of such a person.

Ragle additionally starts to experience what he believes to be hallucinations in which objects disintegrate before his eyes and are replaced by strips of paper stating what they were (e.g., “door,” “drinking fountain,” etc.). All of which further fuels his anxiety about his own mental health and whether or not the strain of putting in hours and hours each day creating his contest entry is getting to him.

As you might guess, there’s a lot more happening here than initially meets the eye. I won’t give away more about the plot than to say that eventually Ragle does come to confirm his suspicions that the contest he’s been working on is more than just a harmless bit of problem-solving, but has much larger implications. And that the mundane suburban setting in which he lives isn’t what it seems at all, either.

I read a lot of Dick novels long ago, and I seem to remember most of them having these highly intriguing set-ups and then the execution sometimes feeling a little hasty. I think Time Out of Joint falls into this category, too, although ultimately the story is successful at making the reader think about the nature of reality and larger philosophical questions such Hamlet contemplates when he utters the line that gave Dick his book’s title.

I don’t want to say too much more about the book, though, because I want to recommend it to anyone reading this blog. I think it’s a book that poker players should find especially interesting, and not just because there’s actually some poker played early on in the book (something I’d completely forgotten about).

Rather, I’ll quickly list three reasons why I think the book might appeal to poker players, especially full-time players who sometimes find themselves stepping back and thinking about the significance of having found themselves playing a game for a living.

One reason is the obvious parallel between Ragle’s “job” and that of, say, a full-time poker grinder, especially one who only plas online and thus finds him or herself kind of isolated from the world in much the same way Ragle is when working on his puzzles.

Aggravating his wondering about his own sanity are Ragle’s self-doubts about the nature of his employment and whether or not his life has any real significance. In fact, there’s a small argument early in the book between Ragle and a neighbor in which the latter kind of chides him a little for not having a “real job.” Ragle thinks to himself about how even though he makes more money at his “job” than his brother-in-law does at the supermarket, his existence ultimately boils down to “puttering about with something in the daily newspaper... like a kid.”

I know some poker players -- especially those who mainly make their living playing online -- have these same conversations with themselves and with others regarding how they earn their living. I’m thinking especially of these guys chasing Supernova on PokerStars or who pursue other endurance-test type promotions (or self-created goals) which assign a kind of tangible significance to their activity that perhaps gives it extra meaning beyond simply trying to earn money playing cards.

A second idea that comes up in the book is the question of Ragle’s “skill” at solving the ““Where Will The Green Man Be Next?” puzzle. Years of working it have allowed him to accumulate data and charts he uses to help inform his predictions with each new puzzle, much like the grinders keep and review their stats and use it to increase their chances of winning.

Ragle gets asked questions about his skill for the game sometimes, and it is clear there is at least some doubt among others about how much chance is involved in the contest’s outcomes. And in fact there are some suggestions made as well about cheating and/or the contest being “rigged,” in some fashion, all of which I think would prove intriguing to online players, too.

Finally, a third reason I’ll recommend Time Out of Joint to poker players has to do with the way it invites readers to think about the difference between subjective experience and objective truth. You know, that big existential question of whether or not one person’s idea of the world is similar to what others think about it, and how our subjective experiences often diverge and force us to compromise when it comes to assigning meaning to the world around us.

Poker is a game that highlights this idea that there is a difference between reality as such and what individuals think about it. I’ve written in the past about the John Lukacs essay “Poker and American Character” in which he makes a grand statement that “poker is the game closest to the Western conception of life... where free will prevails over philosophies of fate and chance, where men are considered free moral agents, and where -- at least in the short run -- the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens.”

I take Lukacs as saying that poker provides a great context for demonstrating how humans can collectively experience something -- e.g., a hand or session -- and come away with entirely distinct ideas about what happened or what it meant. A bluff is a concentrated example of this sort of thing, wherein the significance of a given bet can obviously mean different things to different people. But I think the idea applies more broadly to the game and the seemingly endless ways people tend to approach it, define it, and define themselves and their actions when they play it.

In any case, this invitation to think about the nature of reality (as we know it) that Time Out of Joint offers seems to be the kind of thing poker players might be interested in pursuing. Thus my recommendation.

And if you do happen to read the book, come back here and tell me what you thought it meant and we’ll see how well our ideas match up.