"You have real talent DeCeglie. You leave the rest for dead!
The unrelenting descriptions
and razor-sharp psychological insights got me from the first sentence.
This is more than poker fiction, its about being the very best you can no
matter who or where you are, and that is important."
Jeff Lisandro - Four Time WSOP Bracelet Winner and 2009 WSOP Player of the Year.
"Hard-core poker players
know well the highs and the lows,
the ecstasies and the agonies, the
challenges and the frustrations of the game.
DeCeglie takes the reader on a journey through this world
on the back of a man who surrenders his existence
to the whims of the poker gods, with a writing
style as raw, hard and beautiful as the game itself."
Blair Rodman - WSOP bracelet winner and co-author of "Kill Phil,
The Fast Track to Success in No-limit Hold’em Poker Tournaments."
"One hell of a read.."
Stewart Scott - Winner of Aussie Millions 2009 Main Event
"DeCeglie has balls roughly the size of Bukowski’s. Damned Good is goddamned good"
Jimmy Jack - Winner AFI Award for Best Screenplay
"DeCeglie knows all too well how often men seek meaning in life's dark corners,
then find they've cornered themselves. He wields his strong, original voice
dexterously through the shadowy corridors of his protagonist's world, with
prose so sharp it often cuts you on the way past. Damned Good is a must-read
for poker fans and those who can't help but flirt with the dark side."
Patrick O'Neil - Author of Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunter S. and Kerouac
"The novella as I love it - Steinbeck, Kafka, Capote, Hemingway, Conrad,
Kerouac - is a hard literary act to pull off. "Damned Good" is
unapologetic writing reminiscent of the tough son of a bitch poetry
of Frederick Seidel. DeCeglie is a man who knows his literary tools
and how to use them - just the ones he needs. This is a voice that's
heard clear above the loud-mouthed D-lister literary grant huggers,
presenting us with a magnificent concatenation of mens games."
James Phelan - critically acclaimed bestselling novelist.
"It’s in high-stakes poker that the Rookie has found what it means to live authentically, dangerously...The Rookie is a
hero in the tradition of those streetwise heroes of Gibson’s cyberpunk novels,
brilliant at what they do. The prose has similar crisp, unexpected metaphors.
Yet it’s also close to the prose and characters of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, the brave cowboys who
don’t say too much, but think deep thoughts and experience a kind of brutal beauty in their world.
Damned Good is
a worthy follow up to Deceglie’s debut novel, The Sea Is Not Yet Full...It’s a compact
and interesting story with a character and a milieu which are refreshing for Australian literature."
Nathan Hobby, Australian novelist and winner of the 2003 TAG Hungerford Award,
click here to read the full review.
..the book delivers a full house of sex, money and fate as it plays out on the emerald felt
Elena Gomez - withextrapulp.com.au
...two cards in the pocket plus five on the table gives the author all the drama he needs.
DeCeglie's maintains a sharp, intense pitch and skillfully depicts the dark, tense moods of the poker lifestyle.
Nietzsche quotes included.
Levi Asher - Litkicks