Review of Fast Company
- Title:
- Fast Company
- Author:
- John Bradshaw
- Publisher:
- Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
- Date:
- 1975
- ISBN:
- 0-061-20455-2
- Pages:
- 175
- Price:
- Out of Print
November 22, 2002
Bradshaw wrote his book Fast Company at the end of an
era. The nature of the professional gambler has changed. Just a generation
ago, the prototypical pro was a hard driven hustler who
leapt from the pages of a Damon Runyon story. Most contemporary professional
gamblers as likely to rely on mathematics and computer models as
nerves of steel. The old-school hustler and road gambler is a thing of the
past, and they are quickly passing from memory, as well as departing this
mortal coil. One place where these characters have been frozen in time
is in Jon Bradshaw's book, Fast Company.
In Fast Company, Bradshaw is not merely recounting the
lives of professional gamblers, he has narrowed in on a specific subset,
the hustlers. These are the folks who not only end up with their
opponent's money, but leave them wondering how it could have happened.
The people
Bradshaw chose to profile in this book are Puggy Pearson (Poker), Bobby
Riggs (Tennis), Minnesota Fats (Pool), Tim Holland (Backgammon), Johnny
Moss (Golf and Poker), and Titanic Thompson (just about everything).
It would be hard for me to imagine a finer representation of the great
names in 20th century hustling.
Each of these stories is an exquisitely written profile describing what
makes the subject tick. Bradshaw not only relates these folks' stories,
but gives them a real presence. These characters really come to
life in these pages, and the reader gets a real sense of what it would
be like to square off against these colorful personalities. If they
read like Damon Runyon stories, it's no wonder, as Titanic Thompson was
the model for Runyon's character, Sky Masterson, and Minnesota Fats was
known as New York Fats until he took the name of the character in
The Hustler who may or may not have been based on him.
In fact, many of these folks overlapped with each other and Runyon
in New York.
Of all of these portraits, my favorite is that of Titanic Thompson.
Now here is a character who is truly larger than life. Given his
reputation, it's a wonder that anyone would bet with this man on
anything. In any case, an entire book could easily be written about
Thompson's exploits, but many of his most famous escapades are made
available here, and this is just one of the fascinating characters
profiled in this work.
Many of the subjects of Fast Company are not universally known
as upstanding citizens. In some sense, all of the people
the book profiles live on the fringes of society. This is not to say
that they're criminals either, but their places in the world aren't easy
to define. The author doesn't pass judgment on these characters, although
he obviously romanticizes them. It is the fact that they are both
successful, at least by some measure, and that they don't fit into convenient
categories that makes them so vivid, and this quality comes through in
Bradshaw's writing.
It's a shame that Fast Company is out of print. In many
ways, it's a monument to a bygone era. The road gambler and hustler is
all but extinct, and it's not likely that their kind will soon pass our way
again. All we have of these fascinating individuals are the memories
of their escapades. It would be a tragedy if these memories were to fade
away as well. I believe that anyone who gets a chance to acquire this book
should avail themselves of the opportunity.
Capsule:
Fast Company is an out-of-print classic chronicling the
adventures of six infamous "old school" hustlers. While the author
occasionally gets overly romantic regarding these vintage characters,
there is no doubt that these are fascinating individuals whose stories
are worth retelling. I very much enjoyed this well written testament
to a bygone era that is starting to fade from our memories.
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