Critics' Opinion:
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Published Jul 2017
320 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
If a Richard Russo protagonist went on a bender in Vegas, the result would be something like Swimming with Bridgeport Girls: an uproarious romp about a lovesick gambler and his against-all-odds quest to win back his ex-wife.
Ray Parisi is in trouble. Fired from his anchor job at ESPN after one too many public humiliations, he is holed up in a motel and in desperate need of a break. His ex-wife is shacking up with another guy in his old house, a Cambodian bookie wants to kill him, and he's wanted by the New York State Police. A few days before the Fourth of July, he unexpectedly receives an inheritance from his long-lost father, and it seems like all of his problems might be solved. Determined to get his life back together, Ray hatches an imaginative but highly suspect plan to win back his wife, dashing from Connecticut to Las Vegas to Memphis in an attempt to secure his future before the past runs him down. The cast of characters he meets along the way is as loveable as it is absolutely insane.
Sure to please fans of sophisticated romantic comedies like Seating Arrangements and Silver Linings Playbook, Swimming with Bridgeport Girls is a hilarious, heart-wrenching, and unexpectedly powerful tale about one man's mission to - against all odds - finally get it right.
"Starred Review. Tambakis's outstanding debut is entertaining and sometimes sad, a superb portrait of a troubled but wisecracking gambler. Think Carl Hiaasen meets Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Gambler." - Library Journal
"If this were a Springsteen album, it would be Devils & Dust: partly set in Las Vegas, it evinces hope and humor but is dark and gritty at its core." - Kirkus
"The author does an excellent job of recreating the noon-at-midnight feel of a Las Vegas booze-and-gambling binge. But Ray, as a character, remains problematic. He is a fine, witty companion in the early going, but after a while, this poster boy for arrested development becomes a bit of a bore." - Publishers Weekly
"Swimming with Bridgeport Girls is a sad, smart, funny-as-hell novel with a broken heart that beats powerfully between the lines on every sad, smart, funny-as-hell page." - Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You
"Ray Parisi is an unforgettable character. His story demonstrates the terrible compatibility between the faith and idealism required for gambling, and the faith and idealism required for love. Anthony Tambakis's Swimming with Bridgeport Girls brings its reader along on an incredible journey from casino to casino making the romantic impulses of a gambler feel like one's own." - Natalie Portman, Academy Award–winning actress
"This is the funniest book I've read in a long time - a bighearted story about one man's quest to save his ruined marriage. Ray Parisi makes one terrible decision after another, but I never stopped cheering for him." - Jason Rekulak, author of The Impossible Fortress
This information about Swimming with Bridgeport Girls was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anthony Tambakis is the recipient of the Paul Bowles Fellowship for fiction writing and a renowned screenwriter. He is currently adapting the 1961 novel and film The Hustler for Broadway and penning the screenplay for Swimming with Bridgeport Girls, his first novel. A native of Fairfield, Connecticut, Tambakis lives in Venice, California.
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