The King of Video Poker

May 6, 2024
A professional video poker player gets caught in a downward spiral in Iacovelli’s caustic debut. The unnamed narrator makes daily trips from his home on the Nevada-Arizona border to Las Vegas, where he’s on a two-week losing streak. His depression is exacerbated by the recent death of his hero, golfer Arnold Palmer, and he worries his previous winnings have given him the “illusion of meaning.” A widower on his second marriage, he struggles to connect with his 15-year-old son, Tim, an elite youth soccer player. After Tim declines to accompany the narrator on a road trip to Palm Springs, where he wants to place flowers at the site of Palmer’s victory in the 1973 U.S. Open, the narrator stays home and polishes his guns. Then his wife takes Tim to Italy for a soccer tryout, and the narrator hires a Vegas escort named Sophia. From there, the plot veers toward a grim climax, as the narrator hatches a sinister plan. Iacovelli imbues the narrator’s rants with an uncompromising precision; to him, Burberry perfume smells like “rotten fruit tossed in a blender with noxious chemicals.” It’s hard to look away from this disturbing character study.