Where Gods Gamble

Book excerpt: Most so-called epic novels are the stuff of motion picture blockbusters: tragic love stories, diabolical villains, great battles with gigantic armies colliding upon endless flat plains of death. Yet in the real world, for most people, the greatest battles of their lives are the ones fought inside their own headsand the villains are creatures both self-created and self-nurtured. Meet Charlie Barnes. Age 24, bright, college-educated, talented and a failure. Now hes back home in Los Angeles after a disastrous two-year pilgrimage to New York and back. No more time to fail. Time to give it one last shot. Set against the backdrop of the 1980 Iranian Hostage Crisis and colored by panoramas of Californias fabled Santa Anita Racetrack, Where Gods Gamble is Eastlands emotional dance through the history, hope, and failed promise of America. A reluctant hero, young Barnes is a typical, willing victim of Americas manufactured myths and sweet, seductive slogans. But now he has an important decision to make. Will he pursue the depressing, false security of a normal 9-to-5 job? Will he select the far more difficultyet infinitely more fulfillingcareer of a professional gambler? Or will he succumb to his own internal demons in trying to sort it all out