Hustler Days: Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter, Jersey Red, and America's Great Age of Pool (Paperback)

by R. A. Dyer (Author) "THE HEAVY WOODEN DOORS OF AMES POOL HALL SWING WIDE..." (more)
Key Phrases: hustler days, pool renaissance, poolroom bum, Jersey Red, New York, Johnston City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This lyrical, profane ode to the irresponsible life explores the dissolute romance of pool through the lives of legendary hustlers Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter and Jersey Red. Journalist Dyer follows the fluctuating fortunes of the hustler demimonde from its Depression-era heyday, when unemployed men flocked to pool halls looking to make a quick buck ("idle men...surge like lifeblood into poolrooms"), to the doldrums of the years after World War II, when these men had jobs, families and mortgages to absorb their time and money and a "black plague infected pool," to the explosion in pool's popularity in the 1960s, after the movie The Hustler glamorized it for a new generation seeking escape from propriety. Following sociologist Ned Polsky, Dyer appreciates the pool hall as the last redoubt of the "permanent bachelor," a classless, defeminized zone where "men argued and spat and threw money across green felt" and evaded the burdens of respectability and domesticity. Dyer brings this subculture to life through many colorful anecdotes about his three anti-heroes, examining their childhood opposition to chores, their unfitness for gainful employment, their titanic tournament duels, where their human deficiencies become virtues, and the sad denouement-especially for pool demi-god Wimpy Lassiter-of a lonely old age. His prose can shade toward the purple ("Jersey Red came at the other fellow ferociously...his young lion heart pounding with every soft thud of the nine-ball,") but connoisseurs of urban decadence will enjoy soaking up the rich atmospherics. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Every great countercultural moment lives longer in analysis than in real time. Adding to a slow-growing canon, Dyer explores "America's second great age of pool" (roughly 1960-72) and the players who defined it: self-inventing bloviator Fats; shambling, hypochondriacal, shot-making genius Wimpy; and Red, gifted but a perennial also-ran. Pool hustlers, like con men, tap into an especially American envy of those who literally refuse to play by the rules. Dyer knows this, even as he, too, is seduced by the film noir quality of these lives: predatory masters of an obscure craft, the hustlers' greatest triumphs are little-known and most die broke and alone. One senses that the prose has been bullied in an attempt to make it sing, and one wonders if, despite his long research, the author is a bit too credulous when stories are too good to be true (he cites Fats' fanciful autobiography too often). Yet this labor of love has much to recommend it. Pool players leave no troves of correspondence for researchers, only great stories, and maybe that's enough. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592286461
• ISBN-13: 978-1592286461
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #834,786 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hustler Days, March 11, 2004

By	Carlos Ledson Miller (Nassau Bay, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hustler Days: Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter, Jersey Red, and America's Great Age of Pool (Hardcover)

In HUSTLER DAYS, R. A. ?Jake? Dyer captures the turbulent lives of three lions who prowled the green felt jungle during the 1960s: Fats, Wimpy, and Red. Readers, such as myself, who play the game will feel as comfortable as if they were in their neighborhood poolroom. Readers less familiar with the game will discover it in all its varying nuances, through the colorful, yet accurate, depiction of these three anti-heroes.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hustler Days, January 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Hustler Days: Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter, Jersey Red, and America's Great Age of Pool (Hardcover)

I got this book as a gift and had no idea what to expect. Having no background or real knowledge about pool, I was completely delighted and mesmerized by an era of American culture I didn't even know existed. R.A. Dyer's storytelling of this time in history alowed me to be a voyeur of an age gone by; feeling the pool halls come alive with each page I read. I couldn't put the book down, needing to know what was coming next. Thank you R.A. Dyer for taking us on a rockin adventure with the likes of Fats, Red, Wimpy, and the rest of the boys!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hustler Days, December 13, 2003

By	Gene Dyer (Warrensburg, MO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hustler Days: Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter, Jersey Red, and America's Great Age of Pool (Hardcover)

My husband can't put this book down long enough for me to get my hands on it. He even drifts off to sleep holding it. It's amazing to me because he hasn't read a book in quite some time. I think his words were "never". He says it is extremely interesting and well written. A brand new pool table was just delivered, hum. Must be of great inspiration, a perfect Christmas gift for anyone.