Over at facebook, I just survived getting tagged by the Emporer of Dogplotz, aka nine-time Atlantic City dice champion Barry Graham, so I thought I'd follow up by mentioning the book he mistakenly had me down as citing. It's Nothing or Next to Nothing, and I just picked up an eight-dollar copy from Main Street Rag, and if you follow this link, you can, too. Based upon what I read in The National Virginity Pledge, if you can get into Dan Fante, Bukowski, SaFranko et al, you may like Barry's writing.
One of my favorites from Virginity was Graham's gambling story. It was one of the longest in the collection of sometimes flash-length fiction, and the tale also reminded me a bit of other recent reads: The Rag's "D-Gen" and Steve Almond's lead story in the 2010 Best of American Short Stories, "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched." Within twenty years, it could be legal to strip search and pepper spray anyone seen gambling at less than a grand a throw, so there will continue to be a lot of gambling tales to pen on cocktail napkins. The ones I just mentioned could be the trailblazing stories in twenty-first century casino fiction.
Alex Kudera’s award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggie’s Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include “Frade Killed Ellen” (Dutch Kills Press), “Bombing from Above” (Heavy Feather Review), and “A Thanksgiving” (Eclectica Magazine).
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