The Hustler - Walter Tevis

Author: Walter Tevis

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First published:1959

Setting: Chicago, USA
Read in September 2013

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

The rumour about 'Fast Eddie' Felsen taking the Texaco Kid, Varges, the man who invented one-pocket pool, and all-comers out West precedes him, but he will never take a top Chicago hustler like Minnesota Fats. 'Fast Eddie' is hustling his way across country with sidekick Charlie, accumulating a stake sufficient to take on the legend and he will soon arrive at Bennington's pool hall.

Walter Tevis's debut book was quickly made into a hit movie in 1961 starring Paul Newman, but it was the sequel which Tevis wrote 25 years later and published in 1984, 'The Color of Money' which won Paul an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. This was Walter Tevis's last book as he died shortly afterwards from lung cancer.

At just over 200 pages this is a short book, but not short on quality. To be good at pool you need intelligence, confidence and the ability to concentrate, but it takes more to excel and to be the best, you need stamina, nerves of steel and you must read and face down your opponent and choose the right time to increase the stakes. This is an art form, when mastered pool is beautiful.

It takes more than a misspent youth to beat a person like Minnesota Fats. As 'Fast Eddie' discovers his character, so do we. He falls out with Charlie and in the early morning at a bus station coffee bar meets Sarah, a student of alcohol. But what Eddie needs is advice, a manager, a backer, perhaps a person like Bert a professional poker player, but Bert plays for high stakes, perhaps more than Eddie is willing to accept.