Pocket Kings

January 9, 2012
The anti-hero of Heller’s third novel (after Funnymen) is Frank Dixon, a resentful schlub who’s failed at everything he’s puts his mind to: athletics, painting, and, most recently, writing. Stuck in a midlife crisis, Frank finds Internet poker and discovers that he has some talent after all. He immerses himself in a virtual community where he makes friends and potential lovers, all while winning money unstoppably. As he alienates people in the real world—from his wife to his literary agent—he delves further into his online relationships and begins to lose himself to his addiction. As “Chip Zero,” he builds a fortune, but his success breeds resentment, and one player in particular plots revenge to get his money back. The obnoxious narrator, his endless failures, and the instant messaging all grow tiresome, but Heller should be commended for creating a thoroughly repellent character whose story is captivating, even compulsive, reading. While the book has the gritty, unpleasant feel of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk or Sam Lipsyte—another futile diatribe against the barrenness of 21st-century American (male) life—it’s a well-crafted and entertaining satire on the world of modern publishing, as well as the perverse artificiality of the Internet. The prose equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, Heller still manages to make the reader laugh and rage at more or less the same time. Agent: Matthew Elblonk, the Creative Culture.

Starred review from June 25, 2012
Struggling writer Frank Dixon takes to online gambling as a means of supplementing his rather stagnant income, but forgets that in the gaming world he shouldn’t cross the wrong people. Narrator William Roberts delivers a stellar turn as Dixon—a man so easily carried away by the prospect of free money that he loses himself and his life in the process. Roberts all but transforms himself into Dixon in this audio edition, sinking deeper and deeper until the point of no return. The highs are as genuine as the lowest of the lows for Dixon, and Roberts manages to paint a realistic portrayal of a man who stands to lose everything he has—including his life. As Dixon, Roberts’s tone is stern yet frustrated. But as luck abounds, Roberts adjusts accordingly to capture a man on the rebound, who believes his dreams might not be that unattainable after all. Of course, luck has to run out at some point, and when it does, Roberts captures the moment perfectly. An Algonquin paperback.