The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age [Hardcover]

Gary M. Pomerantz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1400051622 | ISBN-13: 978-1400051625 | Publication Date: June 9, 2009 | Edition: 1St Edition

Kansas City, 1929: Myrtle and Jack Bennett sit down with another couple for an evening of bridge. As the game intensifies, Myrtle complains that Jack is a “bum bridge player.” For such insubordination, he slaps her hard in front of their stunned guests and announces he is leaving. Moments later, sobbing, with a Colt .32 pistol
in hand, Myrtle fires four shots, killing her husband.

The Roaring 1920s inspired nationwide fads–flagpole sitting, marathon dancing, swimming-pool endurance floating. But of all the mad games that cheered Americans between the wars, the least likely was contract bridge. As the Barnum of the bridge craze, Ely Culbertson, a tuxedoed boulevardier with a Russian accent, used mystique, brilliance, and a certain madness to transform bridge from a social pastime into a cultural movement that made him rich and famous. In writings, in lectures, and on the radio, he used the Bennett killing to dramatize bridge as the battle of the sexes. Indeed, Myrtle Bennett’s murder trial became a sensation because it brought a beautiful housewife–and hints of her husband’s infidelity–from the bridge table into the national spotlight. James A. Reed, Myrtle’s high-powered lawyer and onetime Democratic presidential candidate, delivered soaring, tear-filled courtroom orations. As Reed waxed on about the sanctity of womanhood, he was secretly conducting an extramarital romance with a feminist trailblazer who lived next door.

To the public, bridge symbolized tossing aside the ideals of the Puritans–who referred derisively to playing cards as “the Devil’s tickets”–and embracing the modern age. Ina time when such fearless women as Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Parker, and Marlene Dietrich were exalted for their boldness, Culbertson positioned his game as a challenge to all housebound women. At the bridge table, he insisted, a woman could be her husband’s equal, and more. In the gathering darkness of the Depression, Culbertson leveraged his own ballyhoo and naughty innuendo for all it was worth, maneuvering himself and his brilliant wife, Jo, his favorite bridge partner, into a media spectacle dubbed the Bridge Battle of the Century.

Through these larger-than-life characters and the timeless partnership game they played, The Devil’s Tickets captures a uniquely colorful age and a tension in marriage that is eternal.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The innocuous game of bridge turned deadly in Kansas City, Mo., in 1929 when Myrtle Bennett apparently shot her husband dead in a dispute over a game. In recounting this tale, Pomerantz introduces an ensemble of 1920s characters ranging from Ely Culbertson, who helped fuel the new bridge craze, to Fightin' Jim Reed, the U.S. senator from Kansas City who successfully defended the gorgeous Myrtle Bennett at trial. As promoted by Culbertson, bridge was a zone of equality between men and women—and the stage on which marital spats could escalate; it was, said Culbertson, a way to defuse the petty inhibitions and tensions of daily married life. Pomerantz (Wilt, 1962) offers a thoroughly researched historical tapestry with a mass of amusing anecdotes. But toward the book's end, he swerves into his own fascination with Myrtle Bennett as leading to his historical inquiry into these events. The most eloquent explanation of the similarities between a bridge partnership and marriage comes not from Pomerantz but from family therapist/bridge addict Frank Bessing, quoted in the book: the main conflict is often, 'Who is in charge?' (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“Bridge and murder, two of mankind’s most engrossing pursuits–in The Devil’s Tickets Gary Pomerantz intermingles both to create a crackling portrait of a vibrant past age and a singular moment when a bullet trumped all.”
—Erik Larson, author of the New York Times bestseller The Devil in the White City

“A great story, a real drama, a perfect window on American culture–and best of all, beautifully written with the lightest touch.”
—Susan Orlean,author of the New York Times bestseller The Orchid Thief

“Nowadays people tend to think of the game of bridge as old and somewhat fuddy-duddy, but once upon a time it was young and sexy. What a delight to read Gary M. Pomerantz’s engaging account of how all this got started.”
—Louis Sachar,author of the National Book Award winning Holes

“This remarkably entertaining tale reveals important truths about bridge, such as that the best players must check their egos at the door and that mental endurance and intimidation can be pivotal. But it also reveals truths about life, such as that women need a venue where they can compete with men and that a rare confluence of social factors can create men like Ely Culberston, who was only too happy to be Johnny-on-the-spot when there was money to be made or fame to be won. Anyone who’s played bridge, or ever been the least bit curious about the game’s appeal, will love this book.”
–Bob Hamman, eleven-time bridge world champion

“Masterfully reported, beautifully written, and all but impossible to put down.”
—Jonathan Eig, author of the New York Times bestseller Luckiest Man

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1St Edition edition (June 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400051622
• ISBN-13: 978-1400051625
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #95 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Bridge

More About the Author

GARY M. POMERANTZ is an author, journalist, and visiting lecturer in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. His fourth and newest book, THE DEVIL'S TICKETS, is a narrative from the Roaring Twenties about a sensational killing and murder trial in Kansas City and the contract bridge craze that swept America. National Public Radio hails it as "deliciously detailed and splendidly written." The Kansas City Star writes, "This is history with a whole lineup of compelling characters . . . Pomerantz handles it all with a stirring sense of story and human behavior."

Pomerantz's first book, WHERE PEACHTREE MEETS SWEET AUBURN, was named a 1996 Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. The Times also named his third book, WILT, 1962, a period piece about race, celebrity, and basketball star Wilt Chamberlain's celebrated 100-point game, a 2005 Editors' Choice selection.

A 1982 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Pomerantz worked for nearly two decades as a daily journalist, on staff for The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, initially as a sportswriter and then writing columns, editorials, and special projects. He later served for two years as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at Emory University in Atlanta. His second book, Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds (2001), about an air crash, has been published in China, England, and Germany and was termed by The London Evening Standard "a masterpiece of nonfiction storytelling."

Pomerantz lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their three children. Vist his website at www.garympomerantz.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wasn't sure what to expect, June 22, 2009

By 

booknut - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age (Hardcover)

I'm not a bridge player but really like reading about interesting periods in history like the roaring 20's. I found so many parallels between some of the people and situations in the book and what's happening today. It's a really interesting read and I learned a lot. Plus, there's a juicy crime element that adds to the fun.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Welcome Treat, June 29, 2009

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age (Hardcover)

This is (among other things) the age of Sudoku. Well, maybe that's a little extravagant, but to the extent that we have widespread crazes in the 21st century, Sudoku is (or was) one of them. Sudoku is solitary, intellectual, logical, online and disposable. Nobody ever spent two seconds with a Sudoku puzzle after it was finished, or spent any length of time discussing their favorite puzzles with friends. And nobody ever killed anybody over Sudoku, or so I hope not.

But in the 20th century, you remember, entertainment options were a bit more limited. People didn't have Blu-ray discs or online poker or Twitter or any of a number of other things that we have to amuse ourselves. In the 1920s, they didn't even have television. What they had (among other things) was contract bridge.

This is not to say that we don't have contract bridge in this century. Because we do. I'm almost sure of it. But what we have now is largely one of two things: tournaments where enthusiasts play over a weekend, like a hobby, or online gaming forums where nobody ever knows anybody else and all the cards are virtual. The contract bridge they had in the 1920s and 1930s --- bridge teas where otherwise unoccupied wives gossiped over cucumber sandwiches and small slams --- is deader than Walter Winchell.

The Twenties were a good time for contract bridge. Were they a better time than now? You might ask Jack Bennett, traveling salesman, bad golfer and pillar of the Kansas City middle class. He drives around the Midwest in a Hupmobile, sells perfume to general stores, eats thick steaks without even knowing that the word "cholesterol" existed, and occasionally enjoys the favors of women who are not his wife. It was a man's world, and Jack could tell you all about it, if it wasn't for the fact that his wife shot him dead in 1929 over a badly-played hand of bridge.

You wouldn't want to ask Myrtle Bennett the same question, although it would have been easier to do so. After shooting her husband, she survived into the 1990s. She was left alone for much of her marriage, always wondering where Jack was and what he was doing, and with whom he was doing it. Add to that the pain of several miscarriages and a society that expected her (among other things) to interrupt an otherwise-cordial game of bridge to get her husband's breakfast ready for the next morning, and well, you don't have a recipe for domestic felicity there.

Husbands and wives shoot each other with at least some regularity, and the Bennett case was --- under normal conditions --- nowhere near exceptional enough to merit a great deal of public notice, still less a book written about it 80 years after the fact. What made the Bennett case a sensation in its time was the role of contract bridge in the murder. While Jack's poor bridge play (Myrtle had bid four spades, sat out the hand as dummy, only to find that Jack had lost a makeable contract) was certainly a factor, it was far from the only one. But with contract bridge on the upswing in 1929, the Bennett case became a media sensation.

THE DEVIL'S TICKETS combines the story of the ill-fated Bennett marriage with another union, between bridge players Ely and Jo Culbertson. The Culbertsons were, at the time, engaged on a huge, improbable project to make themselves into the first couple of bridge --- and to make millions in the process. The idea was to make bridge edgier and sexier, and the Bennett case was tailor-made for their sizable ambitions.

Unfortunately, the stories of the Bennetts and the Culbertsons don't dovetail all that well, and THE DEVIL'S TICKETS wanders more often than it should. But anyone with a serious interest in the era, or bridge, will find the book to be a welcome treat.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for lovers of bridge & Kansas City history, July 26, 2009

By 

Mary Reinert (Nevada, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Devil's Tickets: A Night of Bridge, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age (Hardcover)

My mother who was about the age of the central characters of this book dearly loved to play bridge and now I know why. I had no idea that bridge was such a involved craze during the 20's - 40's, and I never thought about it as a battlefield of the sexes, but it certainly was one place where a woman could exhibit intelligence and be in control. I truly enjoyed learning that kind of history about the game of bridge. And the personalities of Ely and Jo Culbertson are so interesting.

And, as a huge fan of Kansas City, I truly enjoyed the story of the KC mayor and presidental candidate James A Reed, Nell Donnelly, the Pendergast influence, Harry Truman, and on and on. For those not familiar, the story of Nell Donnelly (one of the first successful business women in the fashion industry) is totally fascinating -- a blend of politics, fashion, mafia, love, and business. Do check out this DVD: Nelly Don: A Stitch In Time

Now, blended with all those fascinating facts and tales is way too much about the technicalities of the game of bridge and for that matter the legal sparrings of Myrtle Bennett's trial. Sometimes I just had to "skim through" to get to the more interesting parts.

I did appreciate, however, the ending of the book which explores the life after bridge and murder of the main characters. However, it almost felt voyeuristic as family members of the Culbertsons, Reeds, and Bennetts are still living. I wonder what their reaction is to this book.

In short, if you are at all a bridge player, this is one you must read. If you love Kansas City, this is a must. If you just love interesting and rather obscure facts about the culture of the 30's, this is a must.