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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ISBN: 1901982564
Price: £12.99
Casing: Paperback
Format: B (198 x 129mm)
Extent: 224pp
Rights: UK & Commonwealth excl. Canada
Pub. Date: July 2005

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jesse May grew up in suburban New Jersey. After two brief stints in the philosophy department of the University of Chicago, he began six or so years of wandering, working, living and playing poker through New Orleans, Las Vegas, Berkeley, Connecticut, Atlantic City, Israel, Copenhagen, Vienna, Amsterdam and New York City. He can usually be found wherever the best game is. Shut Up and Deal is his first novel.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Not since Mario Puzo's cult classic, Fools Die, has there been a truly great novel about the gambling life. Shut Up and Deal is a wild and stormy trip into the booming casino industry of the 1990s, told by Mickey, an obsessed young poker pro. He's the Cincinnati Kid all tricked out for the '90s and his story is poker, pure poker, brought to life by a cast of shrewd, outlandish characters, all of whom give him a run for his money. Here is a world in which the anarchy of chance comes into cold, harsh focus and Mickey navigates his way through it with an unusual combination of guile and virtue.

Wacky, funny and intense, with a breathtaking voice and rhythmic prose that will make you tap your foot to the beat, Shut Up and Deal is not just for gamblers but for anyone who likes a good story about the forces of good and evil and the mysteries of luck.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Few poker players can write and even fewer can play poker. Jesse May is a rare master of both infernal arts'
- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal

'This book is quick and tough and stinks of the poker room, the casino, the hotel room, the lights that buzz all the time when you're trying to recover the two grand you lost last night. It's a gambler's book. Reading it is being there'
- Frederick Barthelme, author of Bob the Gambler

'A marvellous read, easily the best novel I have ever read on poker'
- Mickey Finn, European No Limit Hold'em champion