Critical Praise for All or Nothing by Preston L. Allen
“As with Frederick and Steven Barthelme’s disarming gambling memoir, Double Down, the chief virtue of All or Nothing is its facility in enlightening nonbelievers, showing how this addiction follows recognizable patterns of rush and crash, but with a twist—the buzz is in the process, not the result … As a cartographer of autodegradation, Allen takes his place on a continuum that begins, perhaps, with Dostoyevsky’s Gambler, courses through Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, William S. Burroughs’s Junky, the collected works of Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr., and persists in countless novels and (occasionally fabricated) memoirs of our puritanical, therapized present. Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu—the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Dark and insightful … The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as … Allen reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A gambler’s hands and heart perpetually tremble in this raw story of addiction. ‘We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don’t play to win.’ Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-’n’-burn novella, sums up the madness … Allen’s brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Allen’s new novel poignantly depicts the life of P, a likable guy who drives a school bus and lives with his wife and four sons in a pleasant house; a guy with brains but no discipline … Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P’s life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups.”
—Library Journal
“All or Nothing is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling.”
—ForeWord Magazine
“By turns harrowing, illuminating, and endearing, Preston L. Allen’s All or Nothing is more than a gut punch, it’s a damn good book.”
—Maggie Estep, author of Alice Fantastic
“All or Nothing is a breathless tour through the mind of P, a gambling junkie who divines lucky numbers everywhere, even in the mumblings of his severely asthmatic son as he comes out of anaphylactic shock. Winning the bet is the only thing. And money has little value except as a means to place the next one. Preston L. Allen’s writing is as tight as a high wire. Out of the hyper-kitsch world of gamblers and the casinos they inhabit, Allen creates a novel that is frightening and sad and thrilling.”
—Gonzalo Barr, author of The Last Flight of Jose Luis Balboa
“Allen has done for gambling what William S. Burroughs did for narcotic addiction. He’s gotten into the heart of the darkness and shown us what it feels like to be trapped, to be haunted, to live without choice. Allen is relentless and unsparing in his depiction of the life of a gambling addict, from the magical thinking to the visceral thrill of risking it all. And now the world will know what we in Miami have known for a long time: he is such a good a writer it’s scary.”
—John Dufresne, author of Johnny Too Bad
“All or Nothing is a smart, riveting novel of obsession; an in-depth character study rendered in tight, sparkling prose. This is a moving story of love and addiction that will hook the reader from the first word.”
—Ivonne Lamazares, author of The Sugar Island
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2010 Preston L. Allen
ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07058-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-936070-04-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009938473
All rights reserved
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
To Dawn, thanks for choosing love
Table of Contents
Title Page
II. TESTAMENT OF INNOCENCE LOST
Epistles II
Our Father
The Brothers
III. TESTAMENT OF APOSTASY
Apostate
IV. TESTAMENT OF THE APOCRYPHA
For the Glory of the Lord
My Father
Mamie Girl
Covenant of the Lord
Don’t Go Spilling My Fruit
My Sister
V. TESTAMENT OF EXILE
The Freshman