Balling the Jack - Tapa blanda

Sharp, funny, romantic tale of love and gambling in slacker-generation New York.

Tom Reasons is a young man who takes his pay cheque every week and bets it all on a Friday night ball game. Then it’s either champagne or pot-noodles for a week. He’s lost his girl because he couldn’t commit to her and now he regrets it. He hangs out at an Irish bar and plays on the darts team with his pals. One drunken night, he challenges the captain of the meanest, dirtiest team in the league to a money-match. And then doubles the bet. Now the race is on for Tom to come up with the $40,000 stake and get his team to win without telling them how much pressure they are really under! Great suspense, lots of laughs, true romance.

Balling the Jack:
to risk everything on the one go ['New York slang']

Tom Reasons is a man who likes to live life close to the edge. He believes in deliberately risking the last dollar, the hangover, the slap in the face – because these are the things that remind him he’s alive. Which is why each Friday Tom stakes almost his entire weekly salary on a ball game: if he wins he’s flush for the rest of the week and New York is his for the taking; if he loses, he lives on pot noodles until the next Friday.

Tom’s other obsession (apart from his lost love, Lisa) is darts. He and his friends are in a local pub team and this year they have a crack at the final. But Tom gets cocky and challenges the captain of the meanest, dirtiest team in the league to a money-match. And then doubles the bet. Now the race is on for Tom to come up with the $40,000 stake and get his team to win without telling them how much is riding on the game ... and suddenly this is one adrenaline rush that even Tom could live without.

An irresistible tale of love and gambling in the big city, 'Balling the Jack' is one of the fastest, sharpest, funniest first novels to have come along in years.