Customer Reviews

Jackpot

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

On its most basic level, JACKPOT involves a character who feels she is missing out on life, and, while on a trip to the Bahamas, tries to remedy this by gambling, drinking, and fornicating her way to paradise. The novel can be seen as a cautionary tale about what happens to someone who thinks the whole world has been having a party to which she wasn't invited, and that the way to crash it is to ditch what meagre sense of self she has.

Encountering JACKPOT is like entering a vortex; the protagonist's
compulsive, self-destructive behavior and the reader's compulsion
to follow this from page to page start to feel like one and the same. The novel is similar, in terms of this effect, to Sylvia Plath's BELL JAR--we don't simply observe the descent toward madness, but are carried along and seduced, a step at a time, by the protagonist's manic, internal logic, until we realize we're making the journey ourselves. The detail and emotional accuracy with which Keller captures the check and flow of her character's thought processes and actions in the hotel casino, as her hopes, desperation, alcohol consumption, and losses keep pace with one another give JACKPOT a subterranean, almost Dostoyevskian feel.

From the start, Maggie, the protagonist, sees herself as surrounded by yet barred from various forms of what she takes to be "paradise." She feels that the neighborhood she lives in is not one of the "right" neighborhoods, and, unlike the acquaintances she envies, she doesn't move within a circle of beautiful friends she assumes get everything they want sexually and otherwise. The novel is mainly set on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and when her friend, Robin, is talking Maggie into accompanying her on this trip, what closes the deal is Robin's off-handed comment about having "f***ed her brains out" the last time she was there. The title, beyond its immediate reference to what Maggie hopes to win in the casino, comes to reflect different forms of the dreamed-for or lusted-after paradise from which Maggie craves to end her exile.

The original literary characters to be obsessed by what proved to be a false paradise from which they felt excluded, and who found what they thought was a neat short-cut which ended up taking them in the opposite direction, were Milton's Adam and Eve. The imaginative brilliance of JACKPOT is reflected in its ability to reveal and make new this archetypal pattern, while seeming to focus so relentlessly and exclusively on the here and now immediacy of Maggie and her small world. This is an extraordinary achievement, made even more so by the extent to which it seems hidden, at first, within the fabric of the book's immediacy and accessibility.

From The Critics
Publisher's Weekly

A Bahamian vacation turns into a nightmarish dreamworld in Tsipi Keller's smart, sly Jackpot. Maggie has long been cowed by her beautiful friend Robin, so when Robin leaves Paradise Island for a spur-of-the-moment sailing trip, Maggie has a chance to shine. Instead, she descends into wild gambling and even wilder sex, though she somehow retains her innocence. Keller expertly charts Maggie's transformation in this accomplished and oddly gripping novel. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

i just finished reading jackpot and feel as though i've been away in some exotic land and have come back, enriched and wiser, and more sober. jackopt is honest and brutal in ways i like a book to be honest and brutal.

Tsipi Keller tells such an honest tale of the human condition in Jackpot. Although I was sorry to see the book end, its magnificent concluding image excited my imagination about what comes next. The author's sultry island beach setting lavishly contrasts with her raw and insightful landscapes of the protagonist's psyche, behaviorally depicted.
If you've ever fantasized about trying on a new life far far away from the beaten path, let Jackpot first give you a sneak peek. Then consider carefully before packing your bags for the excitement of casino life; you can bet the waters are deep.

Tsipi Keller has written a spell-binding portrait of one woman's gambling addiction. Innocent and alert, Maggie is a plain Jane who flowers among "les fleurs du mal" and casino life of Paradise Island in the Bahamas where she nearly loses herself. It's the reader's job to figure out what complex needs the jackpot fulfills and fails to assauge. The gambler's primary goal is to win money, but Keller suggests that Maggie's longing for her lost mother and ironic emulation of her glamorous friend Robin are at the poles of Maggie's desperation.

"Jackpot" is the haunting tale of a woman, so insecure, so toally devoid of any sense of self-worth, that she is nakedly vulnerable to every slight, real or imagined. Having no inner resources and unable to connect in a meaningful way with any of the people around her, Maggie, feeling abandoned, embarks on a path of self-destruction.
This is a frightening and cautionary description of a young woman's descent into near madness as she becomes ever more detached from reality. The reader watches - yes, watches is the correct word, so compelling is the imagery - in horrified fascination as Maggie spirals downward. Her inner monologue reveals not only her utter vulnerability, but her pathetic and futile attemps to fill the empty vessel that is herself, to find in herself some redeeming worth. In the end, she can no longer keep up the pretense. She knows who and what she is and finally, facing that realization, she summons up the strength to take control of her fate at last.

though at times written in a sophmoric manner(at times our author telegraphs) ..this book is a harrowing and psychologically astute portrayal of the unraveling of a young woman's psyche and identity...all the more chilling because the story is told in a matter of fact way that leads one to examine if what happens to the main character can possibly happen to the reader... people will emphatize and be haunted silmutaneously....this novel is well worth reading and may lead you to question your assumptions about you friends as well as yourself....

As a literature I believe Jackpot is well written. Its content is very dark as it deals with a character disorder. I interpret it as someone's troubled life as a choice yet the main character does not realize that she constantly choose the path without knowing it. As a literature I find it extremelyl well written yet the content is sad and depressing as readers read through in detail how her life gets screwed up. There is no help coming to her. She does not seek help at all.

I moved from a very cold state in North to Florida after a brief vacation during winter, and I know what tropical weather does to people. After I moved to Florida I met many people from Canada who would do anything to stay in south Florida. It is not only hurricanes that are dangerous in tropical weather. What I believe is the tropical weather makes ones overly optimistic, believing that everything is going to be okay. Being optimistic is a good thing, but optimism under the influence of tropical weather detouches you from reality and causes serious consequences.

I think this book has a psychological significance because it describes how people with character disorder think, act, and justify their behaviors as a result of the disorder.

If the story was not this sad I would have given 5 stars, but this book gave me a chill in my spine as I finished reading it. But the intensity of the "after taste" of the book tells me that this story telling has a high quality as a literature. The ending does not have a specific direction and letting readers imagine (or hope to imagine ) how the main character would have lived the rest of her life. Its "open ended" ending is effective in some story tellings and certainly in Jackpot.

the book has an interesting premise and could have some interesting twists and turns but the characters are unlikable. I had very little patience for either of the main characters. I found little to be redeeming about either one.