“Nerdection Must Read”
William Darnbrough’s world within the small confines of his town in Illinois is too small to reconcile. Armed with a killer pitching arm and a dream, he travels to Denver in tantalizing pursuit of making it all the way to the big leagues; a life of sin, if you were to ask his baseball-hating mother. Yet the thirst for something bigger doesn’t end with Denver, or a tour of the better parts of his country. Bill Darnbrough can feel his destiny summon him from the other side of the pond, and he intends to heed its call, no matter what it takes, and what, or who, he has to leave behind.
Spoiler-free Plot
Turning eighteen loosens the shackles that keep Bill tethered to the illusion of the idealistic family unit his mother and stepfather have created. Baseball is where Bill derives a sense of purpose. Once the offer comes in, leaving for Denver is a no-brainer. His induction into the sport at a semi-professional level is but the first rung on the ladder leading straight to the top. The unbridled confidence of youth creates an unshakable certainty within Bill of achieving the ultimate success: making it to the heights of professional baseball, the major leagues.
On a night out on the town, Bill becomes acquainted with the roulette wheel. From the first revolution of the black and red themed wooden contraption, an alternative path diverting Bill away from his dreams of sporting achievements materializes on the metaphorical canvas on which his fates are displayed. Following him through the highs and lows, the allure of gambling holds Bill tightly within its gravitational pull.
It’s either one or the other. He cannot have both. Baseball will narrow the scope of his ambitions, planting him firmly stateside until his physical fitness diminishes into eventual retirement and beyond. However, gambling—roulette in particular—exceeds the borders of curated Americana. There is a lot of money to be had in the casino in Monte Carlo, more money than anyone could possibly know what to do with.
Both routes are riddled with unpredictability. While the choice is ultimately his, his fortunes intervene, as they do, steering him towards the life that was inevitably his own from the very start.
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My Take on The Gambler’s Game
Right off the bat (pun intended), Bill’s aspirations strike a chord with the vagabonds within us all. It connects with those internal parts of ourselves aching for something new, something inspiring, something completely foreign, so far flung from our places of comfort, packaged into a life-altering adventure that confronts the stagnant qualities of the status quo. The way Bill pursues his goals with Gatsby-esque certainty is truly rousing. It creates a bond with all those who wish to possess the same conviction to go after the things they crave the most from this world. While the main purpose of this story is to recount the life of a man who found himself—or rather, put himself—at the center of truly extraordinary circumstances, it doubles as a book that encourages and inspires without necessarily meaning to. I cannot totally speak on the intentions of the author; this is solely my interpretation of the prose that stood out to me across the pages of this book. However, I do believe that it is a testament to the success of James Darnborough’s writing that a biographical tale is capable of eliciting such existential emotions out of its readers as an unintended by-product. Not many authors can boast of such a feat.
Being as engrossed in this rollercoaster ride of a story, I felt compelled to scour the internet for supplementary sources to satiate my own light curiosities. Besides a handful of articles describing his gambling exploits and a few baseball-related stories, there wasn’t much else to find from my admittedly shallow search. It made me wonder about the providence of the source material the author must have drawn from to retell his grandfather’s elaborate life story. Be it skyscrapers of meticulously filled journals, noting down each exchange written by William Darnbrough himself left in the attic/basement of the family home for his descendant and author of this book, James Darnborough, to stumble upon when his writing skills ripened, or a revival of the oral storytelling tradition, we readers are grateful that this story has seen the light of day and appreciate the extraordinary quality of narration we are given.
No matter what the source material was, it would have been virtually impossible to preserve every single spoken word, every little action carried out by the people William Darnbrough interacted with, without the use of modern technology. This is where James Darnborough’s artistic touch shines through. He has managed to paint the grey, foggy expanses between factual, chronological events with vivid dialogue and gripping imagery.
Age Rating
15 years and above
Content Warning
Gambling, Death, Robbery, Guns, Gang Violence.
About The Author Of The Gambler’s Game
James Darnborough Originally from London, James Darnborough with thirty years of experience as a magazine publisher in South Africa, Australia, and California. His research for this project has taken him all over the USA, Mexico, London, and Paris, and he met with the casino directors at Monte Carlo.
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