A review of Professor of the Practice of English Chris Corbett’s “The Poker Bride” ran recently in the Baltimore Sun. The review noted that the book contains elements of myth, but “at root it’s more contained and sinewy.” It was also called the opposite of a melting-pot fable. Of his book, Corbett said, “In some ways, it’s a small story. It’s not Gettysburg. This gal just got lucky and we know something about her. But she provides a way to talk about the Chinese experience. I’m not Mr. Kumbaya here, but the story of the Chinese in America is greatly undervalued and underappreciated.”
The review ran on the Read Street blog on Sunday, February 14.
The Baltimore Sun also profiled Corbett and his book. The article noted that Corbett uses a character’s life to flesh out the 1849 California Gold Rush and vice versa. Polly Bemis debarked in San Francisco and rode horseback in a pack train to the mining camp of Warrens, Idaho, in 1872. She became the concubine of a wealthy Chinese master – and then the life partner of a white gambler from Connecticut, Charlie Bemis, who won her (many say) in a poker game. “She was lucky,” Corbett said. "And the Chinese put great stock in luck.” The article called "The Poker Bride" a “literary and historical sleeper – a true surprise, not a snooze.”
The article, “Mining the frontier of fable,” ran Sunday, February 14.
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