A Game Men Play
by Vance Bourjaily
At a glance:
- Author: Vance Bourjaily
- First Published: 1980
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The 1970’s
- Setting: California, shipboard and stops en route to New Zealand, and New York City
- Characters: Chink Peters, Wally Diefenbach, “Cap” Strawbridge, Curt Strawbridge, Libby Strawbridge, Eve Schellcroft, Mary Diefenbach, Wendy Diefenbach, April Dorsey, Olive Dahlke
- Genres: Long fiction, Novel
- Subjects: 1970's, Power, personal or social, Politics, Twentieth century, Veterans, Assassins, hit men, or contract killers
- Locales: California, New York, NY, United States, North America, New Zealand, Australia and Oceania
A Game Men Play is about power and its victims. Novelist Vance Bourjaily wisely avoids the labyrinth of international intrigue and focuses instead on the effects of wealth and power upon people trying to live their lives. One never learns precisely what policy issues, what diplomatic goals, the political intriguers are seeking, nor does one become more than superficially acquainted with the people who call the shots. Bourjaily seems to want to demonstrate the helplessness of victims caught, by accident of birth or association, in the opportunistic machinations of what...
(The entire page is 1650 words.)
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