The King of Video Poker
Arnold Palmer has just died and The King of Video Poker is about to lose everything he loves.
In Paolo Iacovelli’s debut novel, we follow a nameless narrator. He is a normative, upper-middle-class American who commutes to Las Vegas to play high-stakes video poker. He seems to have everything: a son, a loving wife, a beautiful home in Mesquite, Nevada.
But aimless and depressed, he must face emptiness in both spirit and body. His relationships deteriorate and our narrator is left attempting the deplorable to fill the void. He latches onto an excessive road trip as he fixates on Arnold Palmer’s death, trying to chase a high that will never come. Falling deep into the throes of darkness, he finds himself planning one of the greatest atrocities the U.S. has ever seen.
Paolo Iacovelli is a French-Italian-Colombian writer born and raised in New York City. He received his MFA from Columbia’s School of the Arts. The King of Video Poker is his debut novel.
