Synopses & Reviews
The fantastic and flamboyant hero of
Love and Other Games of Chance is Isaac Schlossberg, circus performer, entertainer, and world traveler. The son of Jewish immigrants to America at the beginning of the twentieth century, Isaac spends his formative years in California, performing with his parents in traveling sideshows and circus acts. His later travels take him to Calcutta, where he assembles a troupe of "Oriental Oddities," to Paris, working a stint at the Grand Guignol Théâtre d'horreur, and finally to Hollywood, starring as Ponce de León in a movie produced by Jewish mobsters.
Isaac organizes the tall tales of his past into one hundred chapters or squares, as on the children's game Snakes and Ladders. As he travels around the world (and up and down the game board) he moves sentimentally from the beginnings of love through many of its most painful and joyous, noble and ridiculous manifestations. The cast of characters includes sharpshooters and fortune-tellers, mentalists, magicians, mesmerists, and midgets, with cameos from Buffalo Bill, Geronimo, Hitler, Bugsy Siegel, and the Abominable Snowman. The key players in this game are small and vulnerable people, each with some grandiose fantasy and high hope of making life more wondrous.
A sumptuous entertainment in the vein of Carter Beats the Devil and Niagara Falls All Over Again, Love and Other Games of Chance is at once silly and grand, utterly absurd and yet full of meaning.
Review
"As Schlossberg travels around the world (and across the board), his stunts...are woven together into one exceptionally tall tale. Depending on one's point of view, this is either the book's failing or its forte....The whole enterprise is finally redeemed by Siegel's amusing deadpan style..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Low comedy, physical buffoonery, and rough wit abound. Though a bit over-the-top for this reviewer, this work will perfectly suit those with a taste for the literary fable." Library Journal
Review
"Love and Other Games of Chance is written in the sustained high pitch of carnal joy, and will, rightly, attract readers for that quality alone..." Eric Weinberger, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A sumptuous entertainment in the vein of Carter Beats the Devil and Niagara Falls All Over Again, Love and Other Games of Chance is at once silly and grand, utterly absurd and yet full of meaning.
About the Author
Lee Siegel is professor of Indian religions at the University of Hawaii. He is the author of the novel Love in a Dead Language and several works of nonfiction.