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Overview
In this dead-on satire of online obsessions, a novelist with writer’s block finds a new—and very lucrative—stream of income in a virtual world that appears to give him everything he lacks in the real world.When frank Dixon, a frustrated writer who has seen his career crash and burn, decides to dabble in online poker, he discovers he has a knack for winning. In this newfound realm, populated by alluring characters—each of them elusive, mysterious, and glamorous—he becomes a smash success: popular, rich, and loved. Going by the name Chip Zero, he sees his fortunes and romantic liaisons thrive in cyberspace while he remains blind to the fact that his real life is sinking. His online success, however, does not come without complications, as he comes to realize that his “virtual” friends and lovers are, in fact, very real, and one rival player is not at all happy that Mr. Zero has taken all his money.
Heller’s cautionary tale is continually surprising and startlingly real, a tour de force of satirical storytelling in the vein of Jonathan Tropper and Sam Lipsyte.
Synopsis
In this dead-on satire of online obsessions, a novelist with writer’s block finds a new—and very lucrative—stream of income in a virtual world that appears to give him everything he lacks in the real world.
When Frank Dixon, a frustrated writer who has seen his career crash and burn, decides to dabble in online poker, he discovers he has a knack for winning. In this newfound realm, populated by alluring characters—each of them elusive, mysterious, and glamorous—he becomes a smash success: popular, rich, and loved. Going by the name Chip Zero, he sees his fortunes and romantic liaisons thrive in cyberspace while he remains blind to the fact that his real life is sinking. His online success, however, does not come without complications, as he comes to realize that his “virtual” friends and lovers are, in fact, very real, and one rival player is not at all happy that Mr. Zero has taken all his money.
Heller’s cautionary tale is continually surprising and startlingly real, a tour de force of satirical storytelling in the vein of Jonathan Tropper and Sam Lipsyte.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
The anti-hero of Heller’s third novel (after Funnymen) is Frank Dixon, a resentful schlub who’s failed at everything he’s puts his mind to: athletics, painting, and, most recently, writing. Stuck in a midlife crisis, Frank finds Internet poker and discovers that he has some talent after all. He immerses himself in a virtual community where he makes friends and potential lovers, all while winning money unstoppably. As he alienates people in the real world—from his wife to his literary agent—he delves further into his online relationships and begins to lose himself to his addiction. As “Chip Zero,” he builds a fortune, but his success breeds resentment, and one player in particular plots revenge to get his money back. The obnoxious narrator, his endless failures, and the instant messaging all grow tiresome, but Heller should be commended for creating a thoroughly repellent character whose story is captivating, even compulsive, reading. While the book has the gritty, unpleasant feel of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk or Sam Lipsyte—another futile diatribe against the barrenness of 21st-century American (male) life—it’s a well-crafted and entertaining satire on the world of modern publishing, as well as the perverse artificiality of the Internet. The prose equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, Heller still manages to make the reader laugh and rage at more or less the same time. Agent: Matthew Elblonk, the Creative Culture. (Mar.)Library Journal
When a writer unfortunately named Franklin W. Dixon (think Hardy Boys) begins to play online poker, his life takes a strange turn. His two published books have received little attention, and he cannot find a publisher for the third; however, hiding behind the moniker Chip Zero, he finds both competitive and social success online. As he becomes addicted to easy money, virtual voyeurism, and online relationships, his real-world ambitions and marriage come tragically, but humorously, apart; his wife can't understand him, critics and other writers shun him, and his agent hides from him. The failure to connect in his real life sends Dixon on two raucous, raunchy road trips to connect with Internet friends and lovers and to revive his writing career. VERDICT The pace is fast, the plot twisty, and the satire bites viciously as Heller (Slab Rat; Funnymen) takes gleeful chunks out of the publishing world, Internet culture, and the poker craze, all the while addressing serious questions about the nature of success and reality. Thoroughly unlikable yet somehow sympathetic, Dixon is a comic protagonist for the digital age, and this novel is good, angry fun.—Neil Hollands, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VAJames P. Othmer
Ted Heller's brazen, often hilarious and always disturbing new novel…is a hybrid love letter and suicide note to 21st-century publishing…What seem[s] at first to be a smart if limited satire about publishing and online gambling becomes an illuminating and fully realized story about identity and reputation in the digital age. At its best, Pocket Kings explores authentic existence and the desperate extremes to which a man will go to be recognized in an industry that he, like so many others, despises and loves.—The Washington Post
Katy Lederer
Though [Frank] Dixon is psychologically in a lineage that runs from [Frederick] Exley to the unapologetically misanthropic Sam Lipsyte, Pocket Kings is, stylistically, in much closer conversation with movies and TV shows like Greenberg, Young Adult and Curb Your Enthusiasm that feature irascible and highly unlikable protagonists. Heller is facile with structure and plot, and his sentences and paragraphs are clear and often vivid…but his truly standout talent…is for comically depicting our most awkward and disgraceful inner states, mainly in the form of rants.—The New York Times Book Review