The King of Cards [Paperback]

Robert Ward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1994

Told with candor and a poignant sense of lost innocence, The King of Cards is the story of Thomas Fallon, a successful novelist, who is treated to a homecoming that presents him with the pungent memories of his youth. The award winning author of Red Baker delivers up a touching and comic romp.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ward, best known for Cattle Annie and Little Britches but most admired for the somber proletarian novel Red Baker , has worked in Hollywood for years; as with Richard Price, scriptwriting seems not to have affected his prose style. In fact, style is not his strong suit; his writing is energetic and emotional but often clumsy, and his attitude toward his characters is unmodishly intense. What comes across powerfully in this novel, as in Red Baker , is Ward's passionate belief in seemingly unpromising material, which leaves the reader carried away (sometimes unwittingly) by the sheer creative energy involved. Once again the scene is Ward's native Baltimore and the hero Tom Fallon, a '60s youth grappling with literature at a minor college and a miserable home life. He falls in with Jeremy Raines, a hippie genius with a scheme to sell photographic student ID cards to America's colleges, and the story tracks Fallon's struggle between his desire to be a good student and his attraction to the heady involvement in Life (including sex, booze and drugs) that Raines and his clan offer. Though the novel is awkwardly framed by Fallon's return visit to his college for an honorary degree celebrating his success as a writer, the vital excesses of the '60s are wonderfully evoked, and there are some hilarious and touching scenes, as well as some melodramatic and highly implausible ones. Despite its faults, the book's pulsing vitality--as in the novels of Thomas Wolfe, a writer of similar faults and virtues--carries the day.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Successful novelist Tom Fallon returns to his hometown, Baltimore, to receive an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. During the trip, he reflects on his college days. The bulk of the novel is a flashback to 1965, when Fallon lived with a group of beatniks in a communal house presided over by Jeremy Raines, the "King of Cards." Raines and his crew are partners in an ID card venture, but their lack of business sense leads them into disaster. Fallon, meanwhile, struggles with his identity--is he working class, beatnik, or serious student? Unfortunately, Ward's narrative also struggles for identity. Seemingly unsure of the tone he should take, Ward shifts from a beat prose to more standard English. These shifts don't work, and the novel's unevenness, even if intentional, makes it unengaging reading. There may be demand from fans of Ward's Red Baker ( LJ 5/1/85), however.
- David Dodd, Benicia P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671737414
• ISBN-13: 978-0671737412
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,043,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars lovely book, July 16, 2010

By 

Ozark Boy (England) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The King of Cards (Paperback)

Doesn't happen often, this kind of memoir, done with the just the right ratio of love and distance. This is an extended coming-of-age tale about the love and friendship of two extrordinary young men, only one of whom survives the experience. Read it and weep. Read it and smile.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very entertaining, July 19, 2005

By 

G. Underdown (Belmont, North Carolina United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The KING OF CARDS (Hardcover)

"The King of Cards" is one of those books that takes you back to a place where you wish you could have grown up and had friends like the characters in the book.You get to know the characters. You cheer for them, laugh and cry with them, and even get angry at them. These characters are college kids who are out to make a fortune by printing id cards for colleges. Ther run into the problems of not having the funds for proper tools to make the id's. None of them know how to run a business, or have the proper experience in printing and marketing.What I like about Mr. Ward's book is that one minute things are going great for the kids. Another, they run into all sorts of trouble such as machine malfuctioning, run-ins with the law and having to deal with parents that are more like chidren than adults.If you want to read a book that is ful of adventure, read "The King of Cards".

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A clever bit of fiction, January 29, 2001

By 

Steve G Whipple (Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The King of Cards (Paperback)

Robert Ward's The King of Cards is, for the most part, witty and charming in ways that few other modern books are. While Ward's attempt at a emotional ending backfires, and the main character's wordy ramblings on the events that shaped his persona are unimpressive, the book is consistantly funny and the characters are well drawn. This book is a nice bit of light humor.