Positively Fifth Street by James Mcmanus

Positively Fifth Street by James Mcmanus

In the spring of 2000, Harper's Magazine sent James McManus to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker, in particular the progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend. But when McManus arrives, the lure of the tables compels him to risk his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. This is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament--the players, the hand-to-hand combat, his own unlikely progress in it--and the delightfully seedy carnival atmosphere that surrounds it. Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called Pleistocene exigencies--the eros and logistics of our competitive instincts.

James McManus is a novelist and poet who won the Peter Lisagor Prize for sports journalism last year. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he teaches writing and comparative literature, as well as a course on the literature and science of poker. Positively Fifth Street is his first book.