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Overview
The Halloran's cheat at cards. For generations they have known how to deal, when to fold, and how not to get backed into corners. But Charlie Halloran, the most gifted young gambler in the family, is still paying the kind of games that leave scars.Now he is in Hawaii. He is in love. It is 1971, and he has a chance to break away-if only he can ace at one more game with his father and brother on a beautiful old sailboat, where breathless possibility is finally palpable.
G.W. Hawkes co-directs the creative writing program at Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA. He has published short stories in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, and GQ, as well as in two collections, Spies in the Blue Smoke and Playing Out of the Deep Woods. His previous novels are Surveyor and Semaphore.
Synopsis
Charlie Halloran, a card shark descended from a long line of gamblers, falls in love with professional mathematician Lia O'Donel in Hawaii, and decides he should break away from his family's gambling legacy.Editorials
Bob Minzesheimer
Hawkes' novel Gambler's Rose lets readers see the world as high-stakes gamblers do and lets them feel the tension of their serious mind games. It is a philosophical, suspenseful tale that's heavy on the details.— USA Today
Publishers Weekly -
Cheating at poker may be a risky business, but Hawkes shows it's even trickier to play straight in this story of a father and two sons, card sharps all. Building his tale around a series of suspenseful poker games, Hawkes (Surveyor) captures the lexicon and atmosphere of the world of professional gambling, where the twitch of an eye, or the positioning of one's body at the card table supply more information than the uninitiated could ever imagine. It is 1971, and after an exchange of cryptic notes, family patriarch Music Halloran and his sons, Charlie and Reggie, meet in Honolulu. Music has won a beautiful sailing vessel and has set up a mark he wants to fleece in a high-stakes game at sea. The mark, a perfume manufacturer named Vince Arthur, is accompanied by his daughter, Bobbie, who immediately seduces Reggie, and a professional gambler whom Arthur has hired to keep the Hallorans honest. Meanwhile, Charlie is having doubts about the family profession, and when he falls in love with math professor Lia O'Donel back on shore, his anxieties are compounded. Another high-stakes bet may give him the means to exit the game, but the question is whether he really wants out. Hawkes's setup is dynamite, and his prose is sharp and clean. But after the novel's promising beginning, with each Halloran going his own way, the story begins to lose focus. There is a scheme to sink the sailing boat; there are long-unresolved issues among the three Hallorans, dark secrets that are forced to the forefront as the boys cope with the possibilities of settling down. Hawkes may strive too hard for profundity at times, overloading his gambling metaphors, but the force and wily integrity of the tale ultimately win out. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Porter Shreve
[A] vivid novel... By seamlessly moving the point of view among the characters, Hawkes keeps the dramatic tension high, allowing the reader to assess everyone's stake. Not just another story about lives on the fringe, Gambler's Rose is a satisfying and redemptive novel that takes emotional risks and, more often than not, succeeds.—The New York Times Book Review
Book Details
Published
June 20, 2026
Publisher
MacAdam/Cage
Pages
231
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781878448965