ESCAPEs

by Daniel Tunnard

"Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar live and die by the luck of the draw from the Scrabble tile bag in Tunnard’s delightful debut." ― Publishers Weekly
In an alternate 90s where Scrabble (not poker) is a global sensation broadcast live on ESPN, former world champs Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar meet deep in Argentina’s Tigre Delta for one final game. The words they play spell out how they ended up here, and why they are probably going to die.
By 1996, Scrabble is big business. The once innocent game has gone pro, becoming the third-most televised “sport” in the world, and earning its major players fame, fortune and corporate sponsorships. The league, however, is tightly controlled by a Scrabble mafia (e.g., The Scrafia) and is suffering from a scourge of corruption, match-fixing, and most disturbingly, the mysterious disappearances of problematic players. When Florence and Buenaventura defy the sinister Scrafia, they recall the unlikely obsession that dominated their a tumultuous romance…with a game.
This is the story of a Scrabble reality that never was, but should have been. A bilingual, lexicographical romp across the world, Escapes raises the stakes with each new letter placed upon the rack.

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2020

Reviews

[Valen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tuve que leer este libro para un parcial y no esperaba nada más que juntar información que me sirviera para traducir. Me terminé llevando muchísimo.
Me hizo reír, me hizo enojar, me dejó con ganas de más al final de cada capítulo, reafirmó mi fascinación por las lenguas. El autor es superdidáctico para escribir, quiero leer más de sus obras. Las combinaciones de letras y palabras que fue haciendo a lo largo del libro y cómo coinciden perfectamente con lo que pasa en la historia me volaron la cabeza (será que me gustan demasiado los juegos de palabras). Además, los personajes están muy bien logrados, sobre todo Florence.
Un libro muy entretenido, cortito y que tiene de todo.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tunnard is an Argentinian writer, this being his English language debut. Once his outlandish premise is accepted, what follows is an enjoyable diversion from more serious reading.
Set in the 1990s, when Scrabble was the highest-grossing tabletop game, Tunnard pictures an alternate world, one in which the game is included in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, 'backroom business' is big money, and controlled by the elderly Gilbert triplets of Argentina, who have a crime syndicate as a sideline; Spanish Scrabble soon overtakes the English version, and match-fixing is rife.
There's some interesting factual snippets and Scrabble trivia that can be sifted from the fiction; there are, for example, twice as many 3 letter words in English than Spanish (about 1,000), and that they include BRR and ZZZ.

[Julia Santamaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

quiero leer más libros bilingües

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

An utterly delightful, wildly imagined, poignant and fantastic novel. This book is just so much damn fun. I loved it.

[selah rader · Rating 5 out of 5]

i truly did not expect this book to be such a wonderful read… i bought it at the book depot back in april for, like, two dollars, and only really picked it up to read this week because i noticed it had less than 200 pages and that was the kind of thing i’d need to read to bring myself back on track with my reading challenge.

wowza, it was capturing, creative, wildly brilliant. mainly brilliant. from top to bottom. or rather, cover to cover.

i’m trying to put into the right words what exactly it was that i loved so much about this book, and have realized that maybe that’s actually it - there wasn’t anything specific, it was just the book itself.

only a genius can not only conjure up an idea in their head of a story of an alternate universe where scrabble was more famous in the ‘90’s than poker, to the effect of being considered an ESPN sport with yearly world cups and also a feat in the olympics, but then also go on to carry out that, honestly, crazy thought of a story in the most perfect fashion. double-genius. and the way it was written? explaining the simple and well-known game from the fictional standpoint of it being high-stakes? perfect. the story being told from the present moment but consisting of callbacks to previous scrabble games and the origin of the two main characters scrabble journeys? perfect. wonderful. the characters themselves? perfect. well, maybe not perfect in the “they are both perfect people” sense, but in light of character-writing, yes, perfect.

the ending? impeccably perfect, and though not some huge plot twist, it wasn’t what i expected.

this book genuinely moved me to want to be a pro scrabble player, not even joking. i’ve never touched a scrabble board in my life and probably never will, but the movement is there nonetheless.

i think the book was written… brilliantly. am i being annoying by using that word too much? even if it’s the only word there is to use? every sentence was kind of beautiful, and i’ve never thought that before. not “moving” beautiful, but, literarily, chef’s kiss. i want to read books written like this for the rest of my life. i felt smart just for comprehending what was on the page in front of me. then i thought about how much smarter the person writing it is.

i’ve literally been thinking about this book since i started it. which wasn’t that long ago, seeing as how i completely scarfed it down due to its amazingness. but still. i’ve never thought about scrabble more, and i don’t think a story ever has or ever will resonate with me more. it was just to compelling.

in case it wasn’t obvious, i absolutely loved and thoroughly enjoyed this book. i wish every book in the world was just like it. or at least, a little more similar.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Paula Lyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you believe that Scrabble should be an Olympic sport, than read this to find out what happened when it was. A romance and an alternative history all told through and around a scrabble game. Light, fun read.

[Kostas Kanellopoulos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artsy Borgesian Logophiliac Exquisite

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really entertaining and original novel. If you like Spanish and Scrabble this tale of the Scrabble mafia in South America is for you ! Some laugh out loud moments and great 7 letter words !!

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever. Zany. Wacky. Fun. Inspired. Artful.

[Ernesto In Rome · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel does for Scrabble what the Queen's Gambit did for Chess. At least it should. An exciting, slight alternate universe, tale of the machinations of the shadowy people that control the world of Scrabble. Told as a memoir, switching between protagonists, the inventive story reels you in and doesn't let go. It's very funny too.

[Krenner1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those who play Scrabble and speak Spanish, this might be your 5-star book. I don't do either, but I so enjoyed this alternate reality where Scrabble is an international tournament sensation, complete with its own big blimp in the air over cities who host. And yes, where there's money, there's the Mafia, only Scrabble has its own Scrafia based in Argentina (hence the Spanish references) by unassuming Dons, or Donnas in this case. This novel is the inside story, from the point of view of international champions, and it "had me" to the point where I kept looking up things to see if this were really true. The book is best read in print rather than audio because many of the pages show illustrations of tiles and games. So original!

"And then how my heart leapt when I saw, against all odds, that she was making a play on the opposite side of the board....for 80 points to put her 120 up and surely, she must have thought, win the game...she took forever before I , Florence Satine, aged twenty two, absolute beginner, could cooly (OK actually tremendously excitedly heart a-quiver)place down AMBROSIA for 167 points and the game. Rapturous applause, clarion cries, grateful babies at my breast, small kittens, a single white dove flying from the tolling belfry of a village church. Or, in reality, absolute silence and indifference to this transcendent, earth-shattering move I have just made...."

[Craig Kingsman · Rating 3 out of 5]

What would happen if Scrabble, instead of poker, became a world sensation? Think televised tournaments on ESPN, huge sponsor money, huge pots for the champions, an Olympic sport. And, controlled by the Scrafia, or the Scrabble mafia. That's the premise in ESCAPEs by Daniel Tunnard. There are some things I don't like about this book. First, it's all narrative. Even the little dialog is presented as narrative. Second, because one of the two main characters is from South America, he slips between English and Spanish all the time. I understand Spanish. At one time I spoke it fluently. But for a book that was presented as having been translated (it wasn't), the Spanish should have been "translated too." But, it's a quick read, less than 200 pages, and does keep you engage.

[Richard Hoare · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a scrabble fan, I loved the premise of this novel - love and intrigue set in a hilarious but preposterous world where Scrabble has obtained cult status as a game. I enjoyed the very good, somewhat surreal anagrams Descuido, seducido sucedido which are for the large part delivered in Spanish and also had fun working out how the letters drawn could be used on the scrabble board to create high scoring words of relevance to the events in the novel. However, I was not really moved by the love or sufficiently excited by the intrigue. Clever but not moving.

[Yonit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing my love of Latin American authors and their ability to surprise and innovate, this one is by an Argentinian written in English. Almost like a mockumentary, this is fun and funny, just a light, clever read that I thoroughly enjoyed despite not being a scrabble player.

[Hyphenista · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Scrabble, but the overly detailed accounts of matches (who's got what tiles, what plays are made, etc.) were rather boring to me. However, elderly Argentine women running a mafia in a world where Scrabble is so popular they fix the matches - that's entertaining.

[clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

While a masterpiece, this book left me with a burning question: do similar organizations exist for games like boggle?

Maybe the Bafia isn’t as fearsome, but the Super Big Bafia has terrible potential…

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

so-so

[Elliott Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wicked funny romp through an alternate 90's where Scrabble not Poker becomes a cable TV gaming sensation and two champions married to one another must stay one ahead of mafioso types.

[Leslie]

Recommended by Mark Haskell Smith on Instagram (10/20)

[Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, easy read. I recommend for a lazy day at the pool.