The Only Way To Play It: A Novel

Nate Fischer has been grinding out a living playing poker in the crucible of New York's underground gambling world. A decade ago, as a young painter, it seemed like the perfect way to pay the bills. Now he's hit a cold streak. He's running bad at the poker table. His once-promising art career is in freefall. His wife's having an affair with a dashing book editor. And increasingly, his ex-con father's problems are becoming his own. On any given night, a bad beat could mean the collapse of his house-of-cards life: pre-school tuition, rent, and the family he loves. Just as it looks like he's about to turn it all around, his buddy is shot and killed right in front of him, and the cops padlock every poker club in the city. For Nate's wife, this is the last straw. She decides she needs a break from the marriage, and Nate is forced to move into his tiny painting studio. Making matters worse, his deadbeat dad is evicted from his apartment, and Nate finds himself taking in the one guy who knows exactly where this kind of story ends - and the one least likely to help him figure a way out. Nate's struggle to rebuild his life will take him from the wild west of internet poker to the shady Russian enclaves of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, to the ultra-exclusive art auctions of elite Manhattan galleries, but in the end it is his father, revealing a side of himself that Nate has never seen, from whom Nate learns what it means to put everything on the line in the interest of love and loyalty. In this age of insecurity, Nate Fischer is a good-hearted man caught between an addictive passion for playing the odds versus a fierce desire to provide for his family and live life on his own terms. With themes that resonate-fathers and sons, the money chase, parenthood, and the fragility of marriage - The Only Way to Play It is a classic and painfully relevant tale of love, loss and redemption.