Positively Fifth Street : Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker

McManus, James

ISBN 10: 0374236488 / ISBN 13: 9780374236489

Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003

About this Item

Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects.

Seller Inventory # 15846508-75

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Positively Fifth Street : Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374236488
• ISBN 13: 9780374236489
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 1.587 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

Rough sex, black magic, murder, and the science—and eros—of gambling meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas

James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by Harper’s to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament’s prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether.

McManus risks his entire Harper’s advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself—the players, the hand-to-hand combat, and his own unlikely progress in it.

Written in the tradition of The Gambler and The Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America’s card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man’s effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called “Pleistocene exigencies”—the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.

About the Author

James McManus is a novelist and poet, and most recently the winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for sports journalism. He teaches writing and comparative literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, including a course on the literature and science of poker.