New Book from Gary M. Pomerantz
The Devil's Tickets, a night of bridge, a fatal hand
Mention the term, “Devil’s Tickets” to centenarian, Mary Brooks (an Atlanta resident) and a sly smile takes shape as she remembers the reference. “It’s what we called playing cards 70 or so years ago.”
Ask octogenarian Monty Yokel (a player at the New York Bridge Club) about the Culbertson’s and he recalls them as the couple that made bridge accessible and famous. Gary Pomerantz, acclaimed author of Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, a new classic about life and race in Atlanta, combines the game, marital relations and a true-life murder together in “The Devil’s Tickets,” just out from Crown Publishers.
Mr. Pomerantz is on tour and will read from this new book, for cities and dates please visit the publisher’s website.
A Fatal Bridge Hand
According to the publisher, “nearly 25 million Americans” play bridge today. Many are familiar with Ely and Josephine Culbertson, bridge partners and champions. Through the publication of their magazine, The Bridge World, books and a storm of self-directed publicity, the couple propelled The Culbertson System across the country while training a team of 100+ instructors. Noting along the way the tensions that arose between couples at the Bridge Table, Culbertson promoted the playing as a way to “defuse the tensions of daily married life.”
During the same era of the Great Depression, a couple in Kansas City failed to kiss and make up during a game of Bridge. Myrtle and Jack Bennett met on a train bound for Chicago in 1918 and it was love at first sight. 11 years later, playing Bridge with their neighbors, Mayme and Charles Hofman, Myrtle – fed up with a husband who stepped-out on her and often struck her during hands of Bridge - killed Jack with his own gun.
Heated arguing between partners over hands played still simmers, and boils over, in contemporary Bridge. Murderous thoughts abound in the 21st century but are left at the game table though are played out through sulking, the withholding of sex among other niceties between couples who dare to play Bridge, Canasta or other games as partners.
Pomerantz chronicles Myrtle’s trial alongside the Culbertson’s rise to fame. To flesh out the true to life tale, the author introduces Myrtle’s attorney, Senator Jim Reed who had recently returned to Kansas City after a celebrated 18-year career in the Senate. Reed himself was known throughout the country for representing Henry Ford in lawsuits regarding his oil companies. His brief run for President of the United States added to his fame. Much like Jack Bennett, he was a well-known philanderer.
Enjoyable even if one doesn't play bridge
In his author’s note, Pomerantz assures readers that “you don’t need to know the finer points of bridge,” to enjoy the “glamour an drama of the Culbertsons and Bennetts.” The book includes a glossary of terms and game primer. However, the author states, “I hurry to say that no such primer is called for by this story. It is a tale of husbands and wives. You know the rules by which that game is played.”
For a book reviewer a spectacular by-product of reading and critiquing a new book is when this leads one to an author not previously known by the journalist. In this instance the author is Melissa Fay Greene who will be introducing Mr. Pomerantz at the reading in Atlanta. Ms. Greene is the author of The Temple Bombing and There is No Me Without You. This reviewer has dipped into both books and will be reading them thoroughly for future reporting.
About the author
Gary M. Pomerantz, author and journalist, is a visiting lecturer in the Department of Communications at Stanford University. In addition to Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times in 1996, Pomerantz is the author of Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds and Wilt, 1962. A graduate of the University of California, Berkley, he lives with his wife and three children in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Publisher: Crown (June 9, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400051622
ISBN-13: 978-1400051625
The Devil's Tickets
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Gary M. Pomerantz
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