Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers

Well written account of a young lady's perception of her family. I hope she writes more books!

Katy, thank you so much for writing this book. I found it extremely interesting and enjoyable. I thought it was really interesting to see Howard and Annie's progression from playing card games with the family to being professional gamblers. This book also describes Katy's relationship with Howard, Annie, and her parents. The writing in this book is excellent!

I really found this book a lovely read and very heartfelt. The author is true to her own feelings, but respectful of the quirks of her family members, no matter that they infringed on her own happiness. No, it doesn't tell us all about living the poker life (as earlier reviews have griped)-- why in the world would anyone suppose that it was a poker how-to or "inside" the poker life -- or anything like that? Because the word "poker" was in the title? Sheesh. Congratulations to you, Katy, on this memoir. I enjoyed every minute of your book. Keep going.

Katy Lederer is the youngest of three children. Her elder siblings are now professional poker players and gamblers. Her mother - depressed and alcoholic in Katy's youth - helps them out with their business. Her father worked his life as an English professor and is the author of Anguished English and other well-known books about puns and English grammar. Where does she fit in among these nuts? She tagged along a lot and ultimately went to writing school and became a poet. This book gives a fascinating, honest view of the life of gamblers and of what it's like to be the youngest child. I also liked the ambiguous, poignant ending.

To many people, gambling may be a hobby, or a simple entertainment, a fantasy of riches, or possibly an addiction. To Katy Lederer, it was family. In _Poker Face: A Girlhood among Gamblers_ (Crown) she has told of a very strange upbringing and the result. Her memoir goes from New England, Manhattan, and Berkeley to (of course) Las Vegas, and is a fascinating tale of attempts to beat the odds. It is sad and funny, but she has no axe to grind against herself or any of the family members whom she accepts with understanding and love. Besides being a family memoir, her book also has a good deal of reporting on how gambling is done, and in some cases, done as a career.Games were central to her growing up. "Our parents didn't much care whether we got good grades in school. Winning at games was what mattered." No one helped anyone during the competition. When brother Howard disappeared, he was said to be homeless in New York, but actually, he had fallen in love: "He fell in love with the game of poker - not just with the cards, but with the money and the banter and the drugs." He rose from playing nickel stakes in filthy dives to becoming a professional. He ran a sports betting operation, and hired their mother as a bookkeeper for a very lucrative operation. He eventually took it all to Las Vegas, where he became a high stakes poker player. He taught their sister, and then Lederer herself. Howard's instructions were clear; what is really going on at the table has nothing to do with your cards, and everything to do with the cards of the opponents and what the opponents are thinking about them. Lederer got to be competent enough at poker only to be winning a little overall. "My sister and brother were by this time world-class players, and I lived in great fear of becoming an appendage - their little sister who could write but who was not so great at cards."She finally folded, going back to the writing career she had begun at Berkeley. Writing is a lot like poker: cheerful and bright when all is going well, but universally glum if things are going badly. No matter the changes of mood, though, "... the absolute worst thing imaginable is to never again be in action, to never again write a word." She is certainly in the action in this exploration of love, competition, loss, and chance. She has quite generously dealt us a full house.