A novel about one man's desperate gambling addiction. P is a school bus driver in Florida, and six month ago, he won a hundred grand at the casino. What his wife and family don't realize is that the money is long gone. To keep them fooled-and feed his ongoing compulsion-he indulges in bigger and bigger bets, scrounging for cash anywhere he can. Finally, faced with the ultimate financial crisis, he hits it really big. Yet winning, he soon learns, is just the beginning of a deeper problem . . .
"As a cartographer of autodegradation, Allen takes his place on a continuum that begins, perhaps, with Dostoyevsky's Gambler, courses through Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, William S. Burroughs's Junky, [and] the collected works of Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr. . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu . . . Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of
The New York Times Book Review
"Allen's new novel poignantly depicts the life of P . . . Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."
Library Journal
"A gambler's hands and heart perpetually tremble in this raw story of addiction . . . Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming."
