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BGonline.org Forums
NYT and Washington Post review of new novel...BG related....
Posted By: Jake Jacobs In Response To: NYT and Washington Post review of new novel...BG related.... (Bill Finneran)
Date: Thursday, 13 October 2016, at 4:40 a.m.
I'll read it, and hopefully enjoy it, but ...
Lethem wrote a short story for the New Yorker, which now appears to have actually been an excerpt from this book. It is set in Singapore. There is irony here, because when Lethem was in Singapore (for a writers' conference) he met me, but not unexpectedly, as the meeting took place in a book signing line, he came away knowing nothing about me. He then wrote about the only expert backgammon player in Singapore, never knowing that he had actually met the one man fitting that description.
His Singapore is superficially right, but essentially wrong. Among other things he has a villain, a corrupt official living in Sentosa Cove, who keeps live crocs to which he feeds those who displease him. You could get away with that character in almost every country in South Asia (indeed, almost all of Asia). In some neighboring countries he wouldn't even be over the top. Lethem places him in the one Asian country where he is implausible.
How's the backgammon? Not so good. In an interview the author credits Walter Tevis, author of "The Hustler," as an inspiration. Fast Eddie's personality is believable in a pool hustler, but not in a backgammon hustler. In the "action" scenes Bruno seems guided by hunch and emotion, rather than calculation. He makes beavers for fun, deliberately kicking points, for instance, not to disguise his game but because it amuses him.
The book will probably prove entertaining, not because of the backgammon, but in spite of it.
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