A gloriously written memoir of growing up in a family of hard-core gamblers-Martha Frankel thought the gambling gene had passed her by, until she found herself addicted to online poker and knee-deep in debt.
Most weekends when Martha Frankel was a kid, her mother had a mah-jongg game going in the kitchen with her girlfriends while their husbands were in the living room playing poker. Once Frankel reached adulthood, however, while her cousins were making their way in the world as bookies and drug dealers, gambling didn't much factor into her life.
In the tradition of Five-Finger Discount by Helene Stapinski and Dry by Augusten Burroughs, Hats & Eyeglasses traces Frankel's love affair with poker. It was a passion that bit her in her mid-forties and remained harmless enough when she stuck to real cards. But everything changed one evening in 1998 in Atlantic City, when Frankel overheard one dealer bemoan the fact that his tips that evening were going to be small what with the meager crowd assembled. Another dealer mentioned that everyone must be playing online-"Why leave the house when you can play in your pajamas?" the dealer said. Why indeed? thought Frankel, who couldn't wait to get back to her computer. The next morning she took a deep breath, typed in her credit card number, and entered the world of online gambling. It was the beginning of what one of her uncles called "hats and eyeglasses," a term used to describe those times when you're losing so bad you're drowning (so all one can see is the poker player's hat and eyeglasses floating on the surface of the water). By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Hats & Eyeglasses is a tale of passion, addiction-and those times in life when we almost lose our shirt.
“[This] Honest, funny betting memoir rises to the top... Frankel’s lively storytelling allows her to turn her own crapola into a winner.”
—USA Today
"In five minutes you will feel not only as if you have known [Martha] all your life, but as if you still have one of her sweaters."
—The New York Times
“Intimate, exuberant”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Sparse and honest writing”
—The Associated Press
“Fast-paced and amazingly funny”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune
“[A] frank and unaffected memoir”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fearless… powerful, even uplifting and funny.”
—The New York Post
"Fun and full of life. I've known Martha Frankel for twenty years and Hats & Eyeglasses was still surprising. A wonderful book."
-Jane Smiley, author of Ten Days in the Hills and A Year at the Races
"A bluntly honest memoir of gambling addiction-harrowing, funny, and compulsively readable, straight through to the end."
-John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Falling Angels
"Hats & Eyeglasses is a hamische tour de force. With a warm voice and a light touch, Martha Frankel's account of growing up with gambling pays off, big- time. My bet is on her as she both enshrines and kicks her compulsion. Entertaining and enlightening, this is a must for memoir addicts, and a fine debut for the author."
-Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements and Beautiful Bodies
Q. More and more women seem to be taking up the game of poker. What do you think has caused this new surge in interest?
A. Television has made poker glamorous. Poker is the new smoking.
Q. In the book, you mention that women are treated differently from men at the poker table. Do you think there is a double standard?
A. Women are treated differently from men every place in the world. But at the poker table you can use it to your advantage.
Q. For many novices, maintaining a good poker face is almost impossible. Do you have any good “poker face” tips?
A. Botox or thinking of your opponents naked.
Q. Can you share with us some classic mistakes that beginner poker players make?
A. Body language—leaning in when you have a good hand, grabbing a handful of chips when you want to make a big bet, foot tapping, finger strumming.
Q. What are your favorite poker variations and why?
A. I like hi/low games because the pots are bigger and the players looser.
Q. Why were you so successful playing poker in card rooms and casinos, but lost so much playing online?
A. One reason is that I read people really well, and online I couldn’t do that. I can be fun in person, but not nearly so online. And sexiness doesn’t translate virtually. Oh, and there’s always the possibility that online poker is crooked.
Q. In the book you talk about knowing that you had to stop gambling online, but not being able to physically quit. Can you tell us a little about that experience? You were losing tens of thousands of dollars? Why couldn’t you simply stop?
A. Why do junkies continue to turn tricks while their children hide in another room? Why do emphysema patients get wheeled outside the hospital to have another Marlboro? Addiction is addiction, and while I was strung out on online poker, I couldn’t see my way out of it.
Q. Do you ever feel tempted to play online again or to play more often than just your weekly game with friends?
A. No. I am so over online poker.
Q. Was the gaming at your home something you shared eagerly with friends, or kept hidden? Was there ever any sense when you were growing up that gambling was somehow a little bit bad or wrong?
A. Are you kidding? Kids begged to come to our house because you could play cards all weekend. As for bad or wrong, neither, just fun.
Q. Did it ever seem that your parents or any of their friends were unhappy about their gaming, in the sense that they complained about serious financial problems due to their losses?
A. No one ever complained, but I did witness my uncles whispering in the phone to their bookies. And I did hear my aunts nagging a few times when the rent money wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Q. What was your experience with 12-step programs when you were trying to stop online gambling?
A. I would have been better off with 12 quarts of ice cream for all the help they offered me. From what I’m hearing, gamblers who are serious about stopping often wind up at Alcoholics Anonymous instead of Gamblers Anonymous.
Q. Do you play the lottery or any other games of chance?
A. Never. Poker appealed to me strictly because it was a game where skill came in to play.
Q. Do you feel that online gambling should be banned or more strictly regulated?
A. No. I think people need to regulate themselves, not let the government do it. But I worry that so many young kids are playing online. Still, isn’t stopping them the job of their parents?
Q. What are you working on now?
A. A really salacious novel about middle-aged sex, which is a lot hotter than most people give it credit for.
Q. What would you like to be if you weren’t a writer?
A. The Zamboni driver for the New Jersey Devils or third base coach for the New York Yankees.
