The Queen's Gambit

By Walter Tevis

Categories: Literature & Fiction

The Queen's Gambit, first published in 1983, is Walter Tevis's novel about Beth Harmon, an orphan in 1950s Kentucky who learns chess from the custodian of her orphanage. Dependent on the tranquilizers given to the children there, Beth rises through the chess world in the 1960s, battling addiction and loneliness as she prepares to face the Soviet world champion Vasily Borgov in Moscow. A 2020 Netflix series adapted the novel.

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• Joe Rogan: “That series is really good, but that Walter Tevis guy was amazing. He wrote... The Hustler is really like a psychological drama as much as it is about pool.”