Product Description

Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as she hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting. Engaging and fast-paced, The Queen’s Gambit speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48688 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-11
• Released on: 2003-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781400030606
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
?The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years--for the pure pleasure and skill of it.? --Michael Ondaatje

?Compelling. . . . A magnificent obsession.? --Los Angeles Times

?Beth Harmon is an unforgettable creation--and The Queen's Gambit is Walter Tevis's most consummate and heartbreaking work.? --Jonathan Lethem

?Gripping reading. . . .Nabokov's The Defense and Zweig's The Royal Game are the classics: now joining them is The Queen's Gambit.?  --The Financial Times

?More exciting than any thriller I've seen lately; more than that, beautifully written. ? --Martin Cruz Smith, author of GorkyPark

?It?s advisable to tape your fingers before opening The Queen?s Gambit. Otherwise, the suspense may bring on nail-chewing right to the elbow.? --Houston Chronicle

?Tevis traps us in the breathless drama of the moment and makes us feel the same intense involvement his characters feel.? --The Plain Dealer

?There?s more excitement in Beth than in the collected works of Robert Ludlum.? --Forth Worth Star-Telegram -- Review

Review
“The Queen's Gambit is sheer entertainment. It is a book I reread every few years--for the pure pleasure and skill of it.” --Michael Ondaatje

“Compelling. . . . A magnificent obsession.” --Los Angeles Times

“Beth Harmon is an unforgettable creation--and The Queen's Gambit is Walter Tevis's most consummate and heartbreaking work.” --Jonathan Lethem

“Gripping reading. . . .Nabokov's The Defense and Zweig's The Royal Game are the classics: now joining them is The Queen's Gambit.”  --The Financial Times

“More exciting than any thriller I've seen lately; more than that, beautifully written. “ --Martin Cruz Smith, author of GorkyPark

“It’s advisable to tape your fingers before opening The Queen’s Gambit. Otherwise, the suspense may bring on nail-chewing right to the elbow.” --Houston Chronicle

“Tevis traps us in the breathless drama of the moment and makes us feel the same intense involvement his characters feel.” --The Plain Dealer

“There’s more excitement in Beth than in the collected works of Robert Ludlum.” --Forth Worth Star-Telegram

From the Inside Flap
Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she?s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as she hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting. Engaging and fast-paced, The Queen?s Gambit speeds to a conclusion as elegant and satisfying as a mate in four.

Customer Reviews

"Rocky" for smart people
It was the spring of 1983. On a long plane trip, I started THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by Walter Tevis, a just-published novel I'd bought on impulse. And I was gobsmacked. Tevis --- author of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and THE HUSTLER (and, later, THE COLOR OF MONEY) --- had written a book that, very simply, could not be put down. The woman who would become my first wife tried to talk to me; I shushed her. A meal came; I pushed it aside. All I could do was read, straight to the end --- weeping, cheering, punching the air.

Amazingly, this novel soon went out of print. And stayed out of print for two decades. Now, at last, it's available again.

What's the fuss about? An eight-year-old orphan named Beth Harmon. Who turns out to be the Mozart of chess. Which brings her joy (she wins! people notice her!) and misery (she's alone and unloved and incapable of asking for help). So she gets addicted to pills. She drinks. She loses. And then, as 17-year-old Beth starts pulling herself together, she must face the biggest challenge of all --- a match with the world champion, a Russian of scary brilliance.

You think: This is thrilling? You think: chess? You think: Must be an "arty" novel, full of interior scenes. Wrong. All wrong.

I tell you: THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT is "Rocky" for smart people.

I tell you: You will care about Beth Harmon more than any fictional character you've encountered in years and years.

I tell you: You will grasp the wrench of loneliness --- and the power of love --- as if this book were happening to you.

Do you need to know anything about chess? Nope. Nothing. Tevis was a storyteller whose genius was to tell great stories; there's nothing between you and the people.

My bet: If you read five pages, you won't put it down. You too will weep. And cheer. And at the end, raise your fist like a fool for a little girl who never existed and a game only wimps play.

I don't play chess, but I loved this book.
I picked up a used copy of "The Queen's Gambit" not because I was fascinated by the subject matter, but because Walter Tevis was a writing professor at Ohio University, my alma mater. (I never had him for a class, though I did interview him for a university publication.) I had never read anything by Tevis--not even his bestsellers, "The Hustler" and "The Man Who Fell to Earth"--but "The Queen's Gambit" makes me want to rush out and find every Tevis book I can. In "The Queen's Gambit," Tevis creates a singular, and singularly moving, lead character--Beth Harmon, an orphaned, alcoholic, drug-addicted teenage girl who also happens to be one of the greatest chess prodigies the world has ever seen. Left alone in the world at the age of eight, hooked on tranquilizers by the monsters who run her orphanage, Beth is buffeted on all sides by enemies and fools. She finds her only lasting solace in the black and white figures on the chessboard, living and reliving those strategies as if her life depends on it (which, in the end, it does). Beth is so real, and so heartrending, that she and her story will linger with you long after you've finished the book. The book contains a great deal of chess terminology and strategy--two things of which I am profoundly ignorant and profoundly uninterested. Yet Tevis made me feel the excitement Beth feels in playing the game, and involved me totally in her life-and-death struggle to master it. Even if you don't like chess, you will like "The Queen's Gambit." My guess is that if you love the game, you will adore "The Queen's Gambit."

Take a Gamble and read Queen's Gambit
An excellent addition to the authors resume. The one who brought us The Hustler and the Color of Money - Walter Tevis takes us on another pyschological thrill. We meet the heroine, a young lady who finds she has a gift. She can play chess and play it very well. Tevis takes us inside this prodigy's troubled and brillant mind as she finds what she is truly about. As a chessplayer... it offered me a great insight to my own thinking. I highly recommend to anyone though... like Searching for Bobby Fischer you don't need to be a chess player to enjoy or understand it... It may be better if you aren't.