“The American Spellbound” is available in digital and paperback on Amazon.

I wanted to write a brief summary of what this book is about, but it was difficult to nail it down, it has too many themes: the immigrant story, the hard work, the futility of hard work, the death of the American Dream, the hubris of the elites. I covered many of these themes in my blog many times. Somehow I managed to fit it all in a novella.

So it’s not a chick lit, God forbid, not a “women’s fiction” genre.

Here’s one more small passage about poker:

A poker table is a distilled Darwinian preserve. It’s a modern-day Wild West, where a hand can either strike gold or deteriorate into an OK Corral shootout. “The gunfight is in the head, not in the hands,” a gunslinger once said, and he was right. In the long run, the best mind wins, not the hands that have been dealt.

Poker awards us a luxurious clarity. It spares us from misjudging others’ intentions. Everyone at the table has the sole goal of taking our stack. This simple axiom is liberating. It invites us to check our hubris and identity at the door and focus on the game; whether we decide to accept the invitation is up to us. In realm of poker, there are no men, women, straights, gays, Republicans, Democrats, religious, atheists. It’s a free-membership club with no agenda and no tolerance for illusions, biases or morality tales — just the rules, ordained and enforced by the Poker Gods.

The rules are strict but simple: Poker asks, nay, commands all its adherents to cut the bullshit and embrace reality. It will toy with the deluded — those who have everything figured out — with the playful cruelty of a cat toying with a mouse. Bring all of your convictions and credentials, your anger and insecurities to the poker table and the Poker Gods will tease you and mock you and fill you with false hopes and send you to the ATM a few times before releasing you, broke and steaming, at 5am.