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Gamble
Greg Gamble: he’s a teacher, he works hard, he’s a husband, a father. He’s a good man, or tries to be. But even a good man can face a crisis. Even a good man can face temptation. Even a good man can find himself faced with difficult choices.
Greg Gamble: he thinks he can keep his head in the game. He thinks he’s trying to be good. Until he realises everyone is flawed.
And for Gamble, trying to be good just isn’t enough.
Greg Gamble: he thinks he can keep his head in the game. He thinks he’s trying to be good. Until he realises everyone is flawed.
And for Gamble, trying to be good just isn’t enough.
181 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2018
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33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 21, 2018
Gamble, by Kerry Hadley-Pryce, is a darkly compelling tale of an ordinary family unravelling. The narrative centres around the preoccupations of Greg Gamble, a middle aged husband, father and teacher. Greg no longer finds his wife, Carolyn, attractive but stays with her to avoid his daughter, Isabelle, becoming ‘one of those sorts of children’. He had no wish to become a father but has accepted the role, trying over the years to tamp down the resentments that occasionally bubble to the surface when he interacts with the girl. He has developed habits that he knows irritate, using them at times to satisfy his urge to needle.
When the story opens Greg is staring out his living room window (not lounge as his wife calls it) watching a young woman unload boxes from a van. Mesmerised by thoughts of the woman his cup of tea has gone cold. He sets it on the arm of a chair when he leaves for work knowing that his wife will be annoyed by such behaviour. Greg is aware of his body, the increasing aches and pains, the slight nausea he often now feels. He does not wish to be seen as aging but knows he is.
On arriving at the school where he teaches Greg feels unwell and is advised to go home. Stopping on the way for wine and cigarettes he spots the van with the young woman in the passenger seat. On a whim he drives away from his home, feeling reckless, thinking about the woman and the man she was with, he in derogatory terms.
Greg casts himself in many roles, preoccupied with what he has become. He thinks of the poetry he has written, of the young women he has encountered, of how he appears to himself and them. Given that he has stayed with his wife, despite what she has become to him, he believes he deserves the vices he chooses to indulge.
Lurking within the undertow of his thoughts lies the canal near his home, black and oily, reflecting its surrounds, bordered by mud, hiding its depths. It is a recurring and effective metaphor. The canal also reminds Greg of a pivotal event, one he cannot bring himself to regret despite its outcome.
Carolyn and Isabelle appear as irritants in Greg’s increasingly self-centred imaginings and dissipation. Their actions jar against his wish to retreat from their expectations of him as husband and father. The reader can sense an approaching crisis but when it comes it still shocks. They too will have been lulled into the blinkered landscape of Greg’s self-absorption.
The writing is nuanced, layered and unsettling. The tense of the narrative, the repetition of ‘He’ll say’ as events are recounted, suggests that Greg is to be called to account.
A quietly chilling depiction of what lies just below the surface of an outwardly ordinary and respectable family. A desolate yet riveting read.
When the story opens Greg is staring out his living room window (not lounge as his wife calls it) watching a young woman unload boxes from a van. Mesmerised by thoughts of the woman his cup of tea has gone cold. He sets it on the arm of a chair when he leaves for work knowing that his wife will be annoyed by such behaviour. Greg is aware of his body, the increasing aches and pains, the slight nausea he often now feels. He does not wish to be seen as aging but knows he is.
On arriving at the school where he teaches Greg feels unwell and is advised to go home. Stopping on the way for wine and cigarettes he spots the van with the young woman in the passenger seat. On a whim he drives away from his home, feeling reckless, thinking about the woman and the man she was with, he in derogatory terms.
Greg casts himself in many roles, preoccupied with what he has become. He thinks of the poetry he has written, of the young women he has encountered, of how he appears to himself and them. Given that he has stayed with his wife, despite what she has become to him, he believes he deserves the vices he chooses to indulge.
Lurking within the undertow of his thoughts lies the canal near his home, black and oily, reflecting its surrounds, bordered by mud, hiding its depths. It is a recurring and effective metaphor. The canal also reminds Greg of a pivotal event, one he cannot bring himself to regret despite its outcome.
Carolyn and Isabelle appear as irritants in Greg’s increasingly self-centred imaginings and dissipation. Their actions jar against his wish to retreat from their expectations of him as husband and father. The reader can sense an approaching crisis but when it comes it still shocks. They too will have been lulled into the blinkered landscape of Greg’s self-absorption.
The writing is nuanced, layered and unsettling. The tense of the narrative, the repetition of ‘He’ll say’ as events are recounted, suggests that Greg is to be called to account.
A quietly chilling depiction of what lies just below the surface of an outwardly ordinary and respectable family. A desolate yet riveting read.
September 8, 2018
After devouring The Black Country and relishing it's grim surreal reality I thought I was ready Gamble...
I wasn't, not by a long shot, it's an exhausting, tortuous, journey through the back streets and alleyways of people's lives.
No one in this sorry tale is pleasant, let alone innocent.
It reads like a fever dream, like a panicked confession, it's breathless and loops around and repeats itself as if it is trying to figure out its own truth as it goes along.
It's a bewildering triumph
I wasn't, not by a long shot, it's an exhausting, tortuous, journey through the back streets and alleyways of people's lives.
No one in this sorry tale is pleasant, let alone innocent.
It reads like a fever dream, like a panicked confession, it's breathless and loops around and repeats itself as if it is trying to figure out its own truth as it goes along.
It's a bewildering triumph
May 4, 2019
Gamble takes us into the depths of a man’s mind. Cleverly, at the same time, the writing also plunges the reader into the physicality of the protagonist’s body. We seem to experience Gamble’s sweating, his palpitating heart and the dizziness of his panic attacks, along with his unsavoury thoughts. I found the character completely unlikable, yet utterly believable. He’s flawed and human, dank and dark like the water in Stourbridge Canal. The dark water runs through the book like Gamble’s almost-stream-of-consciousness narrative. Though, in fact, it’s not always Gamble’s third-person narrative that we read. At times, ‘Somebody’ tells us what Gamble will tell us he saw, felt and did.
Reading this book is a thoroughly consuming experience. I’ve never read anything like Kerry Hadley-Pryce’s writing before – except I have – it reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
Superb writing from an incredible talent.
Reading this book is a thoroughly consuming experience. I’ve never read anything like Kerry Hadley-Pryce’s writing before – except I have – it reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway.
Superb writing from an incredible talent.
September 13, 2018
I remember the moment I "closed the book" on Hadley-Pryce's debut, The Black Country. I remember feeling like I'd had the breath knocked out of me, remember feeling speechless. Almost. I remember thinking that I'd never read anything like it before and doubted I'd ever read anything like it again.
And then Gamble arrives through my letter box. As soon as I knew it was available for preorder, that's exactly what I did.
I didn't think Kerry would be able to better what she gave us with The Black Country, such was it's unique style, but she really has.
Greg Gamble is a sorry excuse for a man. He's sad, lonely, pathetic, and all the qualities should make you loathe him, but you don't. You can't. You pity him. There's a reason for the way he is. He's one half of a loveless, thankless, going-through-the-motions marriage. He admits he never wanted to be a father. Admits that his daughter was a mistake that he's just had to come to terms with, that he's had to get used to. His life is as black, dark and dense as the Stourbridge Canal he looks out upon.
Which brings me on to that canal. It may not be human, but it's as much a character as Greg, Carolyn, Isabelle, Hannah and Mara. It's a direct metaphor of the life of our Mr. Gamble. It may be dull, lifeless, listless and unmoving on the surface but below, it teems with activity. It's alive.
Then there's the climax. You know it's coming, something is definitely gong to happen and you almost don't want to know, but you've been caught, and you're being dragged to the end. When the moment comes, expect to gasp in shock. Seriously.
All this, this is down to the unique, and unsettling, style of writing. It's a disturbing, unnerving, voyeuristic. It makes you feel dirty, physically so. It makes you feel like you need to wash away everything you've just read, and if one, one-hundred-and-eighty-one page book makes you feel all of that, well, what better review could a reader bestow upon a writer?
And then Gamble arrives through my letter box. As soon as I knew it was available for preorder, that's exactly what I did.
I didn't think Kerry would be able to better what she gave us with The Black Country, such was it's unique style, but she really has.
Greg Gamble is a sorry excuse for a man. He's sad, lonely, pathetic, and all the qualities should make you loathe him, but you don't. You can't. You pity him. There's a reason for the way he is. He's one half of a loveless, thankless, going-through-the-motions marriage. He admits he never wanted to be a father. Admits that his daughter was a mistake that he's just had to come to terms with, that he's had to get used to. His life is as black, dark and dense as the Stourbridge Canal he looks out upon.
Which brings me on to that canal. It may not be human, but it's as much a character as Greg, Carolyn, Isabelle, Hannah and Mara. It's a direct metaphor of the life of our Mr. Gamble. It may be dull, lifeless, listless and unmoving on the surface but below, it teems with activity. It's alive.
Then there's the climax. You know it's coming, something is definitely gong to happen and you almost don't want to know, but you've been caught, and you're being dragged to the end. When the moment comes, expect to gasp in shock. Seriously.
All this, this is down to the unique, and unsettling, style of writing. It's a disturbing, unnerving, voyeuristic. It makes you feel dirty, physically so. It makes you feel like you need to wash away everything you've just read, and if one, one-hundred-and-eighty-one page book makes you feel all of that, well, what better review could a reader bestow upon a writer?
September 29, 2018
Beautifully written, oozing with atmosphere and a hypnotic narrative voice. If I’d liked any of the characters a bit more, I’d have nudged it up to a five star, alas I just wanted to shake them all.
July 9, 2018
There is a claustrophobic, personalised and insistent quality to Hadley-Pryce's prose that is oddly infectious. There is, you know. Really. We saw it in her first, 'The Black Country' and here it is, even more intensely, in her second and better novel. Added to which, she's picked up touches of HP Lovecraft - probably, in part, through the late and hugely-missed Joel Lane - which she has successfully assimilated into her own very individual style. I don't want to give the impression that this is a generic horror story; in terms of character and event, it sticks to the everyday English suburban that we know so well. But there is something more to it; the disintegration of this alienated couple, Greg and Carolyn Gamble's marriage, is hideous enough in itself; it does not suggest that there's anything unspeakable with tentacles at the bottom of the Stourbridge Canal - which they live next to. But we can't shake the feeling that there might be. With the possible exception of Alan Moore's 'Voice of the Fire', I've not come across another novel, apparently naturalistic, with such a strong sense of the otherworldly - that which is just beyond our perception but sometimes catastrophically influential - not since the DH Lawrence of 'The Rainbow' and 'Women in Love.' It's not automatically a compliment these days to compare any aspect of a writer's work to Lawrence but, in this case, it indicates something very strong indeed. A must-read.
July 5, 2018
his is a brilliant book. A deep-conscious analysis of a fifty-two year old man as he becomes more and more disengaged from his wife and daughter and whatever his 'normal' life was. He is a floundering amoral middle-aged man obsessing about unsuitable women and unable to control his drink habit or his infidelity. An extraordinary book, unique and incredibly compelling. If I was the author's publisher I'd be entering it for an award.
August 20, 2018
You'll say it's hard to like him, Gamble. That's what you'll say when you get to the end. He'll say, Gamble will, it was never about liking him. And it wasn't. I'll say I cared about him, even though I didn't want to. And I'll say the dark of the water, the water of the Stourbridge canal, thoroughly haunted me throughout.
This book gives us a deep insight into the protagonist's mind, exposing to us the minutiae of dark introspective thought. Kerry Hadley-Pryce deftly leads us into a many-layered, after the fact, almost dreamlike story that keeps you turning the pages and leaves you wanting more when you reach the end, way too soon. Her style of writing is addictive and novel and succeeds in bringing you close enough to the man to be able to smell him.
A great follow up to the darkly disturbing 'The Black Country' that gives an equally palpable sense of place. I can't wait to read what she decides to turn her hand to next.
Powerful writing indeed. No less than five stars for this beauty.
This book gives us a deep insight into the protagonist's mind, exposing to us the minutiae of dark introspective thought. Kerry Hadley-Pryce deftly leads us into a many-layered, after the fact, almost dreamlike story that keeps you turning the pages and leaves you wanting more when you reach the end, way too soon. Her style of writing is addictive and novel and succeeds in bringing you close enough to the man to be able to smell him.
A great follow up to the darkly disturbing 'The Black Country' that gives an equally palpable sense of place. I can't wait to read what she decides to turn her hand to next.
Powerful writing indeed. No less than five stars for this beauty.
August 3, 2018
(With thanks to Newbooks/nudge-book.com for the review copy and where this review can also be found.)
I love reading books published by Salt Publishing. They are always original, thought-provoking and compelling reads, so when I saw that 'Gamble' by Kerry Hadley-Price was available to read and review, I jumped at the chance. And it didn't disappoint.
Greg Gamble is the main character in the novel, a fifty-something man who appears to be in full midlife crisis mode, trying to return to the life he had before he had a wife and daughter. As we're introduced to him he has just become interested in the young woman who has moved in across the road, and as the story progresses we learn that this is not the first young woman he's taken an interest in. Gamble by name and gamble by nature - what will be the consequences of Greg's actions?
Kerry Hadley-Price's writing make this novel unsettling and claustrophobic. The narrative tone of the novel provide a constant indicator that something has happened because of its repetitive form ("He'll say that... "; "He'll admit to.... "). Also constant throughout the novel is the local canal, which is dark and dirty and still, but hidden under the surface is movement which sometimes bubbles to the surface, sometimes swirls underneath. Never has there been a more appropriate mirroring of the main character.
Some readers may sympathise with Greg in his loveless marriage, with the child that was a mistake, with the threat of bad news hanging over him and a longing to be free of his domestic shackles. Others might really dislike him. I did. However, I was compelled to read to the end to find out exactly what he'd had done, and it's because of the quality of writing. Read it yourself and see.
I love reading books published by Salt Publishing. They are always original, thought-provoking and compelling reads, so when I saw that 'Gamble' by Kerry Hadley-Price was available to read and review, I jumped at the chance. And it didn't disappoint.
Greg Gamble is the main character in the novel, a fifty-something man who appears to be in full midlife crisis mode, trying to return to the life he had before he had a wife and daughter. As we're introduced to him he has just become interested in the young woman who has moved in across the road, and as the story progresses we learn that this is not the first young woman he's taken an interest in. Gamble by name and gamble by nature - what will be the consequences of Greg's actions?
Kerry Hadley-Price's writing make this novel unsettling and claustrophobic. The narrative tone of the novel provide a constant indicator that something has happened because of its repetitive form ("He'll say that... "; "He'll admit to.... "). Also constant throughout the novel is the local canal, which is dark and dirty and still, but hidden under the surface is movement which sometimes bubbles to the surface, sometimes swirls underneath. Never has there been a more appropriate mirroring of the main character.
Some readers may sympathise with Greg in his loveless marriage, with the child that was a mistake, with the threat of bad news hanging over him and a longing to be free of his domestic shackles. Others might really dislike him. I did. However, I was compelled to read to the end to find out exactly what he'd had done, and it's because of the quality of writing. Read it yourself and see.
August 17, 2018
Kerry Hadley-Pryce's second novel, Gamble is a mesmerising character study of a family unravelling. Greg Gamble is a middle-aged teacher, husband, father. Deeply flawed and drowning in the position that life has taken him, Gamble is a man on the brink. Health issues, a wife who is alien to him, a daughter has contempt for him - all these elements conspire to propel him into a maelstrom of obsession, darkness and desire.
The writing style is compelling and hypnotic, driving us into Gamble's head as he makes each bad life decision. There is not a single wasted word, it's rich and dense and nerve-shredding. I was a huge fan of the Hadley-Pryce's debut novel, The Black Country, but this one marks her as a writer to watch, one whose work deserves wide recognition. Highly recommended.
The writing style is compelling and hypnotic, driving us into Gamble's head as he makes each bad life decision. There is not a single wasted word, it's rich and dense and nerve-shredding. I was a huge fan of the Hadley-Pryce's debut novel, The Black Country, but this one marks her as a writer to watch, one whose work deserves wide recognition. Highly recommended.
June 30, 2020
An utterly unlikable man drifts apart from his family. Well, he'll say drift, but it seems deliberate. Stuck inside his own head, obsessing over young women, he can't see what's going on his family around him.
Very well written, in almost hypnotic and incantatory prose, the written pulls you along and sucks you up into the mind of Greg Gamble. You see things from his point of view, and it's only when these views brush up against other people that you realise you've been duped into feeling sorry for him. Such assured writing!
Whilst every character is unlikable, the book is lovable purely due to the quality of the writing.
Very well written, in almost hypnotic and incantatory prose, the written pulls you along and sucks you up into the mind of Greg Gamble. You see things from his point of view, and it's only when these views brush up against other people that you realise you've been duped into feeling sorry for him. Such assured writing!
Whilst every character is unlikable, the book is lovable purely due to the quality of the writing.
January 27, 2021
This book is, if nothing else, intense. Disarmingly so. A book that has taken me by the scruff of my own scuffed gestalt. In the previous set of pages we had “Something and nothing.” And the book itself ends with “And that’s something.” Not a spoiler, how can it be? A “whole minute click past. / ‘Tox screen shows up…’”
“her goodness, the goodness of her,”
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.
“her goodness, the goodness of her,”
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.
January 24, 2019
Dark but deliciously so.
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