Books: The Eight Ball

THE HUSTLER (214 pp.)—Walter Tevis —Harper ($3.50).

If Hemingway had the passion for pool that he had for bullfighting, his hero might have been Eddie Felson. The poolroom was Eddie's world in whatever town he happened to be, and such moments of truth as he experienced boiled up behind the eight ball. He was a pool shark, although he hated to be called that; he thought of himself as a pool hustler, a town-to-town drifter who conned strangers into games, looked bad or only fair at first, then turned on his skill when the stakes...

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