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It's confession time.  I gave my 17-year-old nephew a pre-read book for Christmas.  I read it really carefully, though and didn't get chocolate on it or anything.  At any rate, I'm not sorry, because the book was Eric Luper's debut novel Big Slick, and it was fantastic.

In poker terms, a big slick is when you start a hand of Texas Hold 'em with an Ace and a King showing. It's a strong starting hand, but in the case of main character Andrew Lang, things fall apart quickly.  Lang is a boy genius of sorts -- the youngest player at Shushie's underground poker club, and he has a knack for the game.  But he borrowed money from  his dad's dry cleaning business to enter a tournament and digs himself deeper and deeper in trouble with every page in Big Slick.  Add to that mix some family tension, a really cute little brother, a loyal best friend, and a hot goth girl who works with Andrew at Dad's dry cleaning business, and you have a seriously compelling plot. 

This is a book that teenaged boys -- and girls, since there's a cool, strong female character, too -- will love.  It's not one of those YA novels that you'll want to share with most middle school kids, though.  The language is intense sometimes, and there's a pretty steamy romance scene. It's definitely more of a high school title -- and a perfect one for reluctant readers at that age.

Even though I'm not a poker player (okay...this is an understatement.  I've been to Las Vegas exactly once, and the people gambling all around me made me nervous enough to break out in hives), I loved this book.  Probably because it isn't really just about poker after all. When all the cards are turned, Big Slick is a fast-moving, gutsy novel about finding your way in the world, making mistakes, and making good.

 
Aside from the fact that this is just a really great, relaxing photograph of a forest-- Ahhhhhhhhhh. Peaceful, iddinit? I also wanted to be sure everyone knows that the newest issue of The Edge of the Forest has been posted for your reading/viewing pleasure.

I had a great time interviewing the fantastic Eric Luper about his blog and his new book, BIG SLICK, as well as his footwear selections.

In addition, I have two reviews posted here. 
One is for Eric's book, and the other is S.A. Harazin's BLOOD BROTHERS, which I also reviewed for ALAN, along with a whole bunch of other books!

Welcome to Stop #5 on Eric Luper's Blog Tour!

Eric's debut novel--Big Slick--was just released and let me tell you that it is one fun read. Once your stress levels go down, that is.

Andrew gets caught up in the rough-and-tumble world of Texas Hold'em and, unfortunately, doesn't know when to walk away from the table. Before you know it, he's in big trouble. Big Slick had me biting my nails to the end, hoping Andrew would wake up and manage to avoid complete and total ruin.

On to the interview...

KH: Eric, you have to know my first question: The card game Texas Hold'em is central to the plot of Big Slick. Do you play cards?

EL: I do play cards. I'll have to say Texas Hold'em is my favorite. I'm a numbers sort of guy (on the days when I'm not a words kind of guy) and I love to crunch the pot odds in my head. But I've also been known to play Magic: the Gathering, Free Cell, Spider Solitaire, War, Crazy Eights, Uno, Go Fish, Pokemon and 52 Pick Up. I also like just shuffling cards. There's something inherently satisfying about shuffling.

KH: Beer, wine, or a soft drink?

EL: It all depends on the time of day, the day of the week, and my mood. Volume-wise, I probably drink soft drinks the most, but I probably enjoy wine the most. I'm sort of a beer geek though and I like to try the exotic stuff. I also went through a beer-making stint but for me the most enjoyable part was designing the labels for the bottles.

KH: Do you watch card tournaments on television? In real life?

EL: I love watching poker tournaments on television because you can see what cards the players are holding. The drama level is high because you know who is bluffing and how it pans out. They also edit out all the boring stuff. Unless I'm actually playing, I can't stand watching tournaments in real life. I have no idea how they can muster a crowd to watch people playing cards. It's like asking people to enjoy an art exhibit where all the paintings are covered with sheets.

KH: Beach, city, or forest?

EL: I'm going to have to go off the board on this one, Kelly, and say "lake." We have a weekend place in Lake George and that's where we spend most of our summer weekends. If pressed to stay on the board, I'll say city. I love wandering aimlessly in New York City. There's nothing like it.

KH: Why did you decide to write Young Adult fiction and not, say, mystery, chick lit, or "literary fiction"?

EL: I started out writing a literary chick-lit mystery, but I got hung up on the proper way to haughtily describe a character being bludgeoned to death with a Hermes purse. Actually, when I was in the creative writing program at Rutgers oh so many parsecs ago (that's a little joke for all you Star Wars geeks out there), all my best stories seemed to come from a teen or child protagonist. Why fight it?

Plus, I think YA fiction is intense. It's emotionally charged and very high in action. Fun stuff.

KH: Coffee, tea, or a triple skinny latte?

EL: Wow, what's with all the beverage questions? [KH: Ummm...it's because I love coffee. And mineral water. Apologies.] Actually I used to drink a lot of frappuccinos but when I found out how many grams of carbohydrates are in them (go look on the Starbucks website) I switched to plain old coffee. Now, I drink way too much of that for any one human being.

KH: Big Slick is your first novel. How long did it take you to write? And I mean from the very beginning--from the spark in your eye to the lovely product I just received?

EL: Here's the timeline (these are rough estimates, but close enough for government work):

• January 2004: I saw my first poker tournament on television and wrote a poker scene as a short-story writing exercise.



• April 2004: I brought my short story to my weekly critique group. They clamored for chapter 2. I called them a bunch of crazyheads.



• June 2004: I started to think that maybe they weren't crazyheads after all.



• September 2004: I finished my first draft and began editing.



• February 2005: I met Wes Adams (my editor at FSG) at the NYC SCBWI conference and slid him my manuscript under the bathroom stall door. (Okay, I'm kidding about that last part)



• April 2005: Wes sent me an editorial letter with some suggestions



• August 2005: FSG offered me a contract.



• September 2005: It finally sunk in that FSG offered me a contract



• September 2005 to date: All sorts of bizarre mind-blowing stuff happened (along with all sorts of temper tantrums, fist-shaking and growling) and there you have it--a book!

KH: Movie, Theater, or a Concert?

EL: Without a doubt: movie. Although I do like watching dramas on the stage, I can't stand musicals. There's something about how all those folks break into song and dance that tears me right out of the story. Although, I do sometimes wish that people broke into song and dance in real life. That would be cool. As for concerts, they're just too darn expensive.

KH: If you had an entire week and unlimited resources to do whatever you'd like, what would you do and why?

EL: This is a tough question. I'm one of those people who loves to fantasize about winning the lottery. I don't play the lottery, but I think about winning it all the time. If I had unlimited resources and only seven days, my week would include staying in a gothic castle with a huge contemporary YA library (you know, one of those libraries with the ladders on wheels), access to night life in some exotic metropolitan area, a wine tasting in a vineyard, a hot tub, a team of nannies, a convertible Ferrari, and a pet chimp. Let's not forget the pet chimp.

KH: Halloween, New Year's, or Valentine's Day?

EL: Without a doubt, Halloween. New Year's is for amateurs and if you need a special day in which to tell someone you love that you love them then you're doing something wrong.

BOOK QUESTIONS

KH: Oh, I felt so badly for Andrew and how much trouble he got himself into with Texas Hold'em. How did you manage to keep up the suspense in the novel? Did you find doing so difficult?

EL: This is an interesting question. I'm not much of an outliner. When I write, the most I have planned is maybe the next chapter and a vague idea of where the book will end up. I know I'm writing well when whatever I'm producing surprises me--makes me laugh, tear up, get excited, etc. I suppose that lends itself to surprising my readers as well.

KH: Addiction and all its dangers play an important thematic role in Big Slick. Was this a theme you thought important when designing the book, or did it develop organically while you were writing?

EL: I give very little thought to theme as I am writing. For me, writing with theme in mind is a one-way path to a boring, preachy manuscript. I create characters that I love and present them with challenges. Then, I keep throwing interesting, yet prickly, things in their way to prevent them from getting what they want or need. Theme, I think, develops on its own through desire, cause and effect, and good old-fashioned karma.

KH: How much research on cards and the game Texas Hold'em did you have to conduct to make Big Slick believable?

EL: Believable is an interesting concept. I think believability comes from character rather than from setting. I mean Scott Westerfeld's Peeps is believable. David Lubar's True Talents is believable. Yes they are fantastical, but once a reader commits him or herself to the story it's all about suspension of disbelief. And that concept holds whether your characters are fighting vampires, have psychic powers, or are playing poker. When you think about it, all of writing is an illusion. If you really want to nitpick, all of life is an illusion. It all has to do with consciousness and perception, but that's getting very existential and too much into my argument of why I shouldn't have to weed the garden in my backyard.

KH: Okay, so this isn't exactly a book question, but tell me a little bit about your blog: Do you find blogging adds to your writing...or, is it just a big distraction?

EL: I have a blast writing my blog. It's the place I write when I want to just let go. It also lets me decompress. Sure, it's a distraction from my writing. What in life isn't? Sleeping is a distraction. Paying rent is a distraction. Working a job that actually pays is a distraction. So is blogging. But blogging is a distraction that lets me keep my head in my writing. And as I said, I have a total blast working on it.

KH: What can we look forward to next from Eric Luper?

EL: My next novel, believe it or not, is going to be grittier than the first. It is about a young jockey at Saratoga racetrack who is pressured to tamper with a horse and help fix a race. There are a lot of seedy characters and tough choices in that book too. Look for it in July 2009, just in time for opening day at Saratoga!

And to keep up to date on what's going on in the world of Eric Luper, check out my website at http://www.ericluper.com/ or my blog at http://eluper.livejournal.com/.

KH: Thanks, Eric! It was a pleasure to talk with you.
--------------------
You can catch the rest of Eric Luper's blog tour here:

Alice Pope's CWIM blog
SaturnCast
The Longstockings
Bildungsroman
The sixth interview, conducted by Julie M. Prince, will be up next week in the all-YA edition of The Edge of the Forest
------------------
Book Giveaway! The first two readers who e-mail FSG ([email protected])
and mention they read Eric Luper's interview here at Big A little a will receive free copies of Big Slick. (You have to mention Big A little a. Good luck!)

Debut Author of the Month: Eric Luper...

Just as those unfortunate folks who can't keep away from casinos, if you read the first chapter of Eric Luper's debut Big Slick you'll be hooked. Luper's young adult novel is set in a Texas Hold'em world of high stakes and big bucks, but, as the author explains below, it's more than just a book about playing poker.

Tell my readers a little about your first novel, Big Slick, which was just released by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

Big Slick is a novel about a young poker prodigy named Andrew Lang who gets himself into some hot water after he decides to "borrow" a few hundred dollars from the cash register at his family's dry-cleaning business to play in a big tournament. Andrew makes mistake after mistake and things quickly spiral out of control. Throw into the mix a hot co-worker crush, a borderline geeky best friend, and a very strange family dynamic and we have the recipe for some major-league hi-jinks.

But although people like to pigeonhole Big Slick as a "poker book," it's really a novel about love, friendship and trust.

And tell us about some of the research you did as you wrote. Did it ever get...expensive?

Surprisingly not. I started writing Big Slick soon after I learned about the game. After reading about a dozen books on Texas Hold'em, I was probably better prepared than most when I first sat at a table. And I had a killer good-luck streak. I played in Atlantic City, Las Vegas and at a local Indian casino and every time I left with more money than I started with.

Lately, I have been playing far less often and my skills have waned. I'm not nearly as sharp as I was. In fact, I'm a sitting duck (at least that's what I want you to think!).

What's a bigger gamble: going all-in, or submitting an unsolicited manuscript?

Submitting an unsolicited manuscript is not a gamble at all. A writer must continually hone his craft, write and revise relentlessly, and do the research to find the best publishing house and editor for his novel. If some part of that is luck, please show me the angle!

You didn't have an agent for your first book Big Slick. How did you wind up at FSG?

I met Wes Adams at the mid-winter SCBWI conference in New York City. I found out he was Jack Gantos's editor and I had to go see what the guy had to say. Wes had forgotten his glasses that day and winged his presentation. I'm not sure if this was shtick or if he actually showed up with notes that he was unable to read, but it won me over. He had me at hello.

Tell us a little about your path to publication.

I have an English degree from Rutgers College, but I decided rather than choosing the path of the starving artist I would choose the path of the not-starving artist. So, I went to professional school after undergraduate. After a few years, I decided to get back into writing and I began to tinker around with this and that. I worked on a middle grade fantasy, a picture book, a chapter book and another young adult title. Each piece I worked on got progressively better, and although I had a few nibbles, I couldn't seem to get any traction. Then Big Slick happened in 5 months or so and it was accepted on one of its first submissions with very few revisions necessary. It seems I had turned a corner.

Why did you decide to pursue an agent after your first publication was underway? How did you find your agent Linda Pratt?

Having my professional practice and a family and a house and pursuing a writing career is too much for any one person to handle. I opted to get an agent because I wanted the additional time to write.

I have known Linda Pratt since 2001 when I got a 10-minute critique with her at a conference in Lake Placid, NY. After her critique, she offered to take a look at my submission once I revised it. In retrospect, the book was terrible, but Linda read all 200+ pages of it and sent me a 5-page single-spaced critique letter that did not spare the rod. Short of getting my first book contract, it was the most cathartic moment in my writing career. I submitted things to her periodically after that, but somewhere deep down I knew I wasn't ready.

Then, after Big Slick was in the can and I was going full-steam on my next novel, I saw Linda at the Rutgers One-on-One conference. It may sound crazy, but I walked right up to her and told her that I was ready for her. She lit up and suggested I send her what I was working on. I sent her Bug Boy in February of this year and the Sheldon Fogelman Agency offered me representation within weeks. The call came as I was trying my best to navigate Disney with my family. I was so excited that it was a struggle not to drive my rental car into a giant topiary of Goofy.

You're an active member of SCBWI, part of the Class of 2k7 and a member of several critique groups--how has this network been helpful to you as you sought publication?

This question alone could be a topic for a book-or at least a thesis of some sort. For me, writing is a very private endeavor. However, I think writers, like any artists, need an outlet to share the experience with other like-minded people. I consider myself fortunate to have grown alongside dozens of other writers-seeing each of them develop, blossom, stumble, and succeed right as I'm doing the same has been awesome. The Class of 2k7 has been particularly interesting because we are all following a very similar trajectory right now-the release of our first books. It's been so helpful to hear about editing woes, cover design gripes, review indigestion and book release jitters from so many other talented authors right when I'm experiencing the exact same thing. Even though we are all very different, we're all in this together!

How did a reluctant reader like yourself end up an English/Creative Writing major at Rutgers?

I am going to have to chalk that up to uninspired high-school English teachers. I remember Mr. Byrne teaching us about iambic pentameter with his head buried in a book. He read us Reuben Bright by Edwin Arlington Robinson with such a stress on the meter that he sounded like a depressed robot. I tuned out for the next three years.

Only when I got to college-when I took my freshman composition class-did I get the suspicion that I might actually like this stuff. We read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and our professor asked us to write an essay on it. Then the teacher scrambled up the essays, redistributed them, and charged us with writing a "review" on the other student's paper. Mine was called "The Unbearable Paper of Rebecca ______." I trashed this girl's essay like I was a scorned lover with a thorn in my paw and haven't looked back since.

And before I get all sorts of hate mail: No, our grades were not affected by the reviewer's opinion!

Do you think if there were more books like Big Slick (exciting, a little racy, with male main characters) when you were younger, you may have been more interested in reading?

I would like to think so. When I was in 7th grade, I thought I should be "into" books like Lord of the Rings and Dune, but they were far beyond my reading level. This shut me down. For a guy who didn't read much, I spent a lot of time in the library. I actually got into a fistfight in the library. Clearly, I lacked proper guidance.

What's your advice for reaching the notoriously reluctant teen male reader?

Write about what makes you nervous, happy, sad, or frightened-whatever moves you. Then trust that it will move someone else. For me, this is the hardest part about writing. You have to bare your innermost feelings. You have to put everything out there. If you are writing and you do not have a visceral reaction, then you are not digging deep enough.

Short chapters and a lot of action help too!

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring YA novelists? What's your best piece of advice for aspiring gamblers?

My advice for aspiring YA novelists and aspiring gamblers is the same: Get a real job. Very few novelists and very few gamblers are able to make a living at what they love to do!

Can you beat me at poker? (Does everyone ask you that?)

Like I said before, my skills have really slipped. I'm terrible these days. So, when do you want to play?

I had some free time this afternoon in my office. I also had a bigger box of books than I had the first time. And, well, for those of you who do not know me so well, idle time is not a good thing for me to have a lot of. If you did not take a moment to click the link above, it zips on over to the entry I did a few weeks back where I built a small towers with my books and culminated with a 20 book domino question mark that I managed to snap a few photos of.

That was nothing.

This time I had 85 books...and a video camera.

Here is the counter run:


Here is the death defying drop:


Here is the hairpin turn past the uber-cool wiggly mirrors:


Here is the home stretch:


And here is the grand finale: the double diamond!!!


Now for your viewing pleasure, enjoy the Big Slick Domino Extravaganza!

<Parents, you may want to have your children leave the room as too much excitement could get their humours in a boil!>



***And to all you librarians and book-lovers out there: no books were hurt in the making of this production (with the exception of a tiny tear on one single dust jacket)***