You probably know the story of “The Hustler” from the 1961 Paul Newman movie of the same name. It’s the tale of small time pool hustler Eddie Felson who wants to move from the small time to the big time by playing the best pool player, Minnesota Fats. He loses to Fats, falls for a woman, gets his thumbs broken, is taught how to win by gambler Bert, and has a rematch with Fats. It’s all there, the pleasure comes in the prose of Tevis’ writing.

The prose is sepia tinged as it should be for the world it’s conjuring for the reader. Tevis uses highly descriptive language, he‘s painting the words on thickly. I recently read Tevis’ “The Man Who Fell to Earth” which was written only about five years after “The Hustler” and he doesn’t use the thickly descriptive adjectives as he does in “Hustler.” It’s obviously a choice Tevis made in the writing.

The conclusion of “The Hustler” is a little more straightforward than the movie, and leaves you a bit more in limbo, because that’s where Tevis’ leaves Eddie, in limbo with Sarah. Are they made for each other? Are they both locked into their “contract of depravity” and they can only be with each other? After the second match with Minnesota Fats has Bert sunk his claws far enough into Eddie to keep him hustling for him?

“Walter Tevis’ “The Hustler” was an instant classic. It received critical acclaim at it’s publication and of course being made into a movie. Tevis’ may have been a bit out of step with his contemporaries in incorporating a more traditional writing style than Jack Kerouac or The Beats but Tevis’ style holds up after almost sixty years and still reads as freshly as the day it was written.