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Published Aug 2019
224 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
Sasha Chapin is a victim of chess. Like countless amateurs before him - Albert Einstein, Humphrey Bogart, Marcel Duchamp - the game has consumed his life and his mind.
First captivated by it as a member of his high school chess club, his passion was rekindled during an accidental encounter with chess hustlers on the streets of Kathmandu. In its aftermath, he forgot how to care about anything else. He played at all hours, for weeks at a time. Like a spurned lover, he tried to move on, but he found the game more seductive the more he resisted it.
And so, he thought, if he can't defeat his obsession, he had to succumb to it.
All the Wrong Moves traces Chapin's rollicking two-year journey around the globe in search of glory. He travels to tournaments in Bangkok and Hyderabad. He seeks out a mentor in St. Louis, a grandmaster whose personality is half rabbi and half monk, and who offers cryptic wisdom and caustic insults ("you're the best player in your chair"). His story builds toward the Los Angeles Open, where Chapin is clearly outmatched and yet no less determined not to lose.
Along the way, he chronicles the highs and lows of his fixation, driven on this quest by lust, terror, and the elusive possibility of victory. Stylish, inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny, All the Wrong Moves is more than a work of history or autobiography. It's a celebration of the purity, violence, and beauty of the game.
"Chapin's sincere memoir of self-discovery will charm chess enthusiasts, as well as those searching for their next move in life." - Publishers Weekly
"The author infuses the narrative with exuberant, often funny, anecdotes; glimpses of strategy; and lyrical reflections on why 'chess is about the most human thing you can do.' An entertaining portrayal of the esoteric world of chess." - Kirkus Reviews
"A smart, funny, and slyly profound book about the dark ecstasies of obsessive love. Sasha Chapin is a gentlemanly Gonzo, a dirty Bond, and he writes like a dream." - Claudia Dey, author of Heartbreaker
"Sasha Chapin writes like someone who knows. He knows euphoria. He knows despair. It's clear that he's traveled to hell and back, that he is fluent in languages of the heart that have yet to be spoken, and All the Wrong Moves is the brightest light." - Bryan Washington, author of Lot: Stories
"All the Wrong Moves is a touching and brilliant portrait of masculinity. Chapin writes with arresting honesty, capturing the manner in which none of us are truly in control of our personalities. He humiliates himself in all the right ways, and the results are luminous and profound and hysterical." - Heather O'Neill, author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel
This information about All the Wrong Moves 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.
Sasha Chapin is an award-winning journalist and recovering chess enthusiast. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, and Hazlitt. He lives in L.A.
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