ESCAPEs
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Descripción editorial
In an alternate 90s where Scrabble (not poker) is a global sensation broadcast live on ESPN, former world champs Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar meet deep in Argentina’s Tigre Delta for one final game. The words they play spell out how they ended up here, and why they are probably going to die.
By 1996, Scrabble is big business. The once innocent game has gone pro, becoming the third-most televised “sport” in the world, and earning its major players fame, fortune and corporate sponsorships. The league, however, is tightly controlled by a Scrabble mafia (e.g., The Scrafia) and is suffering from a scourge of corruption, match-fixing, and most disturbingly, the mysterious disappearances of problematic players. When Florence and Buenaventura defy the sinister Scrafia, they recall the unlikely obsession that dominated their lives: a tumultuous romance…with a game.
This is the story of a Scrabble reality that never was, but should have been. A bilingual, lexicographical romp across the world, Escapes raises the stakes with each new letter placed upon the rack.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Florence Satine and Buenaventura Escobar live and die by the luck of the draw from the Scrabble tile bag in Tunnard's delightful English language debut. In this world, Scrabble is the highest-grossing tabletop game of the 1990s, Scrabble tournaments are multimillion-dollar events (and a sport contested at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics), and backroom high stakes games worldwide are controlled by the elderly Gilbert triplets of Argentina, who lead a crime syndicate called the "Scrafia." The three sisters have a choke hold on competitive Spanish Scrabble, which overtakes the originating English edition as the world standard. However, the Scrafia doesn't intimidate the five-time world champion Florence, whose dominant style could topple their hold on the game. During three years of intense competition, Florence and Buenaventura endure match-throwing, mid-match tantrums, betrayal, and a press expos that turns the world of competitive Scrabble on its head. Tunnard's professional experience and outlandish premise combine wonderfully to create an entrancing alternate reality. Told in both English and Spanish (and using game tiles), this enjoyable romp will please lovers of camp.
