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Twelve Grand: The Gambler as Hero
 
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Twelve Grand: The Gambler as Hero (Paperback)
by Jonathan Rendall (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  (5 customer reviews)

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Product details
  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press (11 Feb 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224051490
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224051491
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 716,542 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
    (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)
  • Other Editions: Paperback (New Ed) |  All Editions

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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
I'll get straight to the point: you probably have to be a gambler to really enjoy reading this.

The book is all about indulgence, mainly on the betting front, although sex, booze and drugs are also high up on the inebriated agenda. The other caveats (do you need any more?) are that swearing and blasphemy feature regularly.

But the most frustrating aspect of the book is that the author sometimes uses abbreviations for common words. It is not always obvious what he means, although you get the general gist.

The main character is clearly in a state of (alcoholic) decline as he relates what he does with the £12,000 given him by a publishing company (coincidentally, Yellow Free Press, the book's publishers) to fritter away on gambling. He ends up waging a "silent war" against a lot of things in his life, some of them imaginary; a state of mind induced by his almost-perpetual intoxicated condition?

Despite its obvious faults, it is a clever and sometimes humorous book that gets you thinking.

It neatly alternates between the past and present, until the twain inevitably meet, and it is an interesting read on the whole, as long as you do not mind the bad language, etc.

You (eventually) end up feeling sorry for the writer and applaud his raw honesty, although you sometimes feel intoxicated yourself reading the book, particularly the fuzzy ending.

Synopsis
The author was given twelve thousand pounds in August 1997 and told to gamble with it whichever way he chose. Any profits he made were entirely his, but even if he lost everything the publishers still wanted his book. It took Rendall three months to spend the money, and this is his story.

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star: 60%  (3)
4 star: 20%  (1)
3 star: 20%  (1)
2 star:    (0)
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Bleak, humourous and insightful, 17 Nov 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Twelve Grand (Paperback)
Jonathon Rendell did not get ahead of the curve. He wrote a first book (despite it being his second) and not a third. Being offered £12k to write a book, with the sole condition that he use the money to gamble, and the book being based on the result, he alternates between a life history of events and his current existence. With the vulnerability of the child, he places the pieces in the jigsaw that lead us to the person who will ultimately conclude the tale. We develop a sympathy for the writer who has few redeeming features, through our understanding of the route he took. Introducing friends and characters who also sit well in this slightly malodorous lifestyle, the reader is encouraged to view them all with a distaste matched by the Publisher, who made the initial proposal. Many seem to have arrived at the same soiled point in life as the writer, (from much the same point of origin) and it is this journey, interwoven with the recurring quest for his first love, which enthralls the reader. Starting the book with a tenuous grip on life, the journey increases in pace and urgency as you rush to return to the conclusion, unsure as to whether his health or morals have enabled him to conclude the challenge. If you can ignore his apparent distaste for vwls. and insistence on abbrev. which is clearly designed to encourage haste and indicate a degenerating state of mind, and yet just irritates, Jonathon Rendell satisfies yet leaves you wanting more. Richly comic, bleak and suprisingly touching, I can genuinely recommend this as a fine read.
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