The King of Cards

By Robert Ward

Book Overview

Ward once again explores the alchemy of stubborn yearnings and unrealized dreams amidst the well-tended rowhouses of his native city. There's a mounting fury in Tommy Fallon's heart in the fall of 1965. He's finally found his life's calling - thanks to the inspiration of Professor Extraordinaire Sylvester Spaulding. Young Tom wants to be lifted on the wings of genius, to ascend to a clean, well-lighted place where cultured people talk about deep things. But how can this college boy learn anything about life or art while living in his family's house of pain? Pop Fallon's youthful dreams of becoming a painter were dashed by the Depression and his own internal demons; he rarely comes out of the inner sanctum of His Holy Toilet, where he's long been lost to the rituals of obsessive/compulsive behavior. Mom Fallon - beaten down by the vast resentment her husband harbors against her and all the other "Baltimorons" - is so starved for love that she enters the Miss Kissable Lips contest at the local radio station. Tom realizes he needs a refuge: a quiet, modest room of his own. There he won't have to see the defeat in his parents' eyes. There he'll follow Dr. Spaulding's lead by living inside the books that seem to be keeping his spirit alive. The King of Cards is the story of how Tom is saved from becoming a myopic, dispassionate snob when he answers an ad for off-campus housing. In the remarkable person of Jeremy Raines - World-Class Confidence Man with a Streak of Idealism, and Pied Piper to a ragtag band of followers - Tom finds a sense of adventure that is positively euphoric.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1440555079
• ISBN13: 9781440555077
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: Tyrus Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Very entertaining

"The King of Cards" is one of those books that takes you back to a place where you wish you could have grown up and had friends like the characters in the book.You get to know the characters. You cheer for them, laugh and cry with them, and even get angry at them. These characters are college kids who are out to make a fortune by printing id cards for colleges. Ther run into the problems of not having the funds for proper tools to make the id's. None of them know how to run a business, or have the proper experience in printing and marketing.What I like about Mr. Ward's book is that one minute things are going great for the kids. Another, they run into all sorts of trouble such as machine malfuctioning, run-ins with the law and having to deal with parents that are more like chidren than adults.If you want to read a book that is ful of adventure, read "The King of Cards".

A clever bit of fiction

Robert Ward's The King of Cards is, for the most part, witty and charming in ways that few other modern books are. While Ward's attempt at a emotional ending backfires, and the main character's wordy ramblings on the events that shaped his persona are unimpressive, the book is consistantly funny and the characters are well drawn. This book is a nice bit of light humor.