Novelist Pete Hautman is a player. Early one morning the rest of us were moving as quickly as we could toward home. Pete, however, stood thoughtfully analyzing the game—who won, who lost, and why. Bad Beat takes place in Zink’s club 34, a familiar bar with a card game going on upstairs. In the course of the story we learn to the meaning and implications of the term "bad beat". An addendum to the book: Joe Crow’s Rules For Poker and Life represents Hautman’s observations about the game of Poker, and life.
4 x 7 inches. 56 pages. 200 numbered copies. 7 multi-color wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec. Signed by the author and the artist. Handset in Garamond Monotype, with Ratdolt titling. Printed on Zerkall paper. Bound in printed paper over boards. In a slipcase. OUT OF PRINT.
Quickly he uncinched his boots and pulled them off, yanked his waders down over his hips, and then off one foot, hopping madly to keep from falling when he loosened the second foot. The sox required two quick tugs. He pulled three shirts over his head in one motion only to fumble with the buttons of one. Glancing left and right to make certain he was alone, he shoved his jeans to the ground and stepped out naked toward his prize.
The text was handset by Franny Bannen with Monotype Emerson originally cast for New York Revisited (The Grolier Club, 2002). The type was redistributed into the case by her and then re-set for The Intruder. A three-page, 5 x 13 inch panoramic image of Clayton fishing his favorite pool was engraved by Gaylord, and printed in four colors on gray Hahnemuhle Ingres paper. A 2-color cover engraving was printed with a split-fountain technique on black Hahnemuhle Ingres for the covers of the book, and a little 3-color vignette of the Intruder’s “plug” adorns the title page.