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The Hustler

by Walter Tevis, 1959

Published: 2022.05.02

Home > Book Reviews > Walter Tevis > The Hustler

 

Photo by Wil C. Fry

★★★★ (of 5)

 

Summary

I’d never heard of Walter Tevis before watching the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit. When I read the novel upon which that show was based, I immediately liked his crisp and clear writing style and determined to read more of Tevis’s books. While Gambit was his final novel, published in 1983, The Hustler was Tevis’s first published book, all the way back in 1959. Unlike Gambit, I read this one before seeing the film adaptation (as of this writing, I still have never seen the award-winning 1961 movie, nor its 1986 sequel).

The novel tells the story of young pool hustler “Fast Eddie Felson”, who has traveled from Oakland to Chicago to go up against one of the country’s best: legendary pool player “Minnesota Fats”, and learns something about himself along the way — the exact type of story that would make a good movie script.

Like Gambit, this book has several connections to Tevis’s own life, perhaps even more. Tevis learned to play pool as a teen and one of his best friends later owned a pool hall. While a university student in Kentucky (the state also figures into this novel), Tevis worked at a pool hall. One of his first published stories was “The Big Hustle”, a pool hall story for Collier’s in 1955.

 

The Good

The writing style was strikingly similar to that of The Queen’s Gambit, despite the 24 years between the two novels. Tevis doesn’t waste time on irrelevant details. If something is mentioned, it is either part of the plot or necessary to provide atmosphere. People, streets, cities, and more are brilliantly described in as few words as possible, never slowing down the story with description.

Much more so than with his later novel, this one is set in three clear acts, almost as if it were written with a movie script in mind. There is the first act, with introductions and the huge first pool match against Fats, which Eddie loses. In the second act, Eddie learns about himself, returns to his love of the game and of winning, and prepares for the final matchup. The last act is the briefest, the finale in which Eddie defeats Fats.

There are excellent insights into the nature of intense competitions, which often don’t come down to skill — since everyone competing is highly skilled — but to “character”, timing, attitude, and other intangible things often overlooked.

 

The Disappointing

There wasn’t much to dislike about this book except for the things that I know were only included because it was the 1950s and not the 2020s. Was it important to include two “Negro” characters whose only role is to sweep pool halls? And surely there was no need to repeatedly emphasize that Minnesota Fats was, as his nickname implies, overweight. (This was one exception to Tevis’s usual sparing style.) If it wasn’t enough to name the man after the one thing he probably hated about himself, each time Fats shows up, Tevis mentions again how the man is shaped.

I also felt like the “love” story with Sarah was only included in the second act to give someone for Eddie to talk to while he was coming to terms with his initial defeat. In other words she was a writing device to Tevis wouldn’t have to do all the introspection as inner monologue. She is the only named female character besides two prostitutes in Kentucky later on.

These complaints, I think, are minor and easily explained away.

 

Conclusion

This book was well worth reading and I wish I’d read it earlier.

 





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