Never Love a Gambler

by Keith Ridgway

Marvelous stories by the Irish writer acclaimed by Zadie Smith as "idiosyncratic and fascinating" Never Love a Gambler is a showcase for the exceptional talents of Keith Ridgway. The Times (London) praised his stories as "flawlessly structured yarns told in lovingly crafted prose." Ridgway's characters negotiate their way through love, madness, lust, anger, religious obsession, crime, and absence in stories told with innovative mastery -- brightened by fiercely vivid dialogues. Never Love a Gambler is a mental refreshing, bracing, and often violently funny.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Ireland, Crime, Literary Fiction

97 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 27, 2014

About the author

Keith Ridgway is a Dubliner living in London.

His sixth novel, Dooneen, is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, and by New Directions in June 2026.

His previous books include A Shock, which won the 2021 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Goldsmith’s Prize; Hawthorn & Child; and Animals. His first novel The Long Falling was filmed by Martin Provost as Où Va La Nuit in 2011.

He has been awarded the Prix Fémina Étranger and Premier Roman Étranger, the O Henry award, and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.

Reviews

[David Ärlemalm]

Läste om den här tunna novellsamlingen, mest för att jag älskar Keith Ridgway och hade glömt bort vad två av tre i samlingen ens handlade om.

[Jim]

Gorgeous prose, slippery stories, mysterious in every sense of the word.

[jeremy]

another entry in new directions' fantastic pearls series, never love a gambler features three short stories from irish novelist keith ridgway. mining territory familiar to that found in hawthorn & child, this brief collection is full of low-lit peripheries, unsavory characters, and violent crimes. each of the stories ("never love a gambler," "shame," and "ross and kinnder") appeared previously in ridgway's 2001 collection, standard time.

as fond (but hardly enamored) as i was with hawthorn & child, these three stories left me rather unmoved. ridgway often writes well enough and while there is something about his tales, in all, i found myself wanting for what was never to come. perhaps these stories are the outlier - or maybe hawthorn & child was. nonetheless, little about never love a gambler was evocative of the curiosity and charm that seemed to abound so effortlessly in hawthorn & child.

but he is not a numbers man, does not pay any due to that, and i don't either, not that way. i am good at them - like to count and measure and tally them up - they are easy company and good for the mind, and while i know they hold qualities and cruelties for some, for me they follow simply one after the other, as do the qualities and cruelties of any life.

[Liz]

I was so confused by this slim volume of three short stories. I picked it at the library as I liked the simple cover and title and it is a small size easy to fit into purse for a book to read on my commute.
I fully admit that I did not understand what was going on in the first two stories. In 'Never Love a Gambler' I was too busy trying to keep the characters straight to be able to think much about the story itself, and it was filled completely with unlikable people except for the boy. And am I wrong in thinking that a ghost saved the day in the end(as I said I was confused?
I don't remember most of the second story, Shame, except the adulterous wide mentioned on the first page.
The last story, Ross and Kinnder, was my favorite, and mostly because I understood what was going on plot wise and it was incredibly descriptive and creepy discussion of morality.
I am all for interesting and dark fiction that wants to be different, modern and inventive, but not when it comes with the price of the obfuscation of understanding what just happened in the pages of the story in the simplest of terms.

[Christine]

The third story, Ross and Kinnder, saved this little collection for me. Quirky, dark, intriguing characters.

[Nicholas Rombes]

How strange can crime fiction get? Ridgway pushes it to the extreme in these three stories and pulls it off with brilliance.

[Jason Craft]

This is a compact collection but every word counts. Intricate, amazing language and structure.

[Tosh]

I'm a fan of the English and French speaking gangster world - and the short story by Keith Ridgeway "Never Love a Gambler" fits the mood as one wears a tight leather glove. The son, mom, and most of all, Mossie Russell, the cruel and almost refined gangster. The plotting of the story is not that important to me, but the setting and how the characters interact in that landscape is the real joy of reading this short story. There is a surrealist touch with the dog carrying something that was once alive in his or hers mouth, that adds a certain angst in the picture. "Never Love a Gambler" is three stories long, and all has a wisp of crime or murder involved. The king kink tale is "Ross and Kinnder." A little narration of obsession and violence. I have never read or even heard of Ridgeway till now. Due to this "sample" of short stories, I m very curious to read on to his other works.

[Alex V.]

This quick little book of three stories filled with crime and ghosts and a preoccupation of a person's use in the world earns four stars by an average. The title story gets five: Irish as a leprechaun eating a ploughman's lunch and perfect in its arc. The other two are bold experiments in bending crime around modern literary ennui, but don't quite pack the punch of the first. I'd definitely read more by Mr. Ridgway.

[Tobias]

Weird crime fiction? Yes, please.

[Sam]

Short, violent and great imagery.

[Mckinley]

Three stories. I liked the title story ok, but not the other two which were a bit more abstracting written (in a weak imitation, sort of in a Kafkaesque).

[Almira]

such a rough read. I don't like violent stories.

[Amanda]

This felt like a weird choice for a collection to me because I wasn't quite sure that the three stories were equally interesting. Specifically the middle story seemed incomplete.