The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar

The Cardturner is Louis Sachar's answer to the raft of mindless teen printerainment that's been crowding bookstore shelves. It's unapologetically smart, with intricate story threads, and nary a speck of glitter.

Summer vacation brings a host of problems for Alton Edwards. He has no job, his girlfriend dumped him for his best friend, and his car barely runs. His avaricious mother is only too happy to help him with the first problem. She harangues Alton into working as his rich, recently-blind uncle’s “cardturner” at bridge games, a job Alton reluctantly accepts. His mom wants him to get on his uncle’s good side so the Edwards family can get a bigger chunk of the massive inheritance that’s coming. Yes, she's an awful person.

Alton can tell that his uncle is sick (diabetes has robbed his sight) but he doesn’t appear to be at death’s door. Instead, he drags Alton to bridge games three times a week, where Alton’s sole job is tell Uncle “Trapp” what card he holds, and then to play them as instructed. The job requires no skill or thought; in fact, that’s forbidden, and Trapp doesn’t need any help. Even blind, he’s the best bridge player in his club.

Over weeks and months, Alton learns about the past events that brought his uncle to his rich but rather isolated life, and about the family secrets that continue to affect the Edwards generations after the first traumatic events occur. Why do the two branches of the family have such an intense rivalry? Why do the Castanadas, the other branch of the family, have such a hold on Trapp? Was Alton’s aunt really insane? Is one of his Castanada “cousins” suffering the same mental affliction? And why should Alton care, other than that Toni is a whipsmart and pretty girl his own age?

As he probes these secrets, Alton also can’t help but learn about the mysterious, old-folks game of bridge. He soon discovers he has a knack for it, and a growing interest in all its mathematical complexities. The question is whether his uncle will ever believe that his interest is genuine, rather than a coy attempt to brownnose. As the summer winds on, events begin to carry Alton and his family ever closer to an astonishing revelation.

Sachar has a gift for creating characters that tell you more than they could ever know. Alton’s worldview is firmly that of a 17-year-old boy, but you discover as much about the story from what Alton misses as from what he sees. The plotline I’ve managed to scratch out above is also laughably superficial. The real story drills down about twenty levels, to the core of what it means to grow up and to grow old, and how much the world has changed in sixty or so years.

Sachar doesn’t waste a word. Every sentence has a point, even the parts strictly about bridge (though there’s a helpful visual gimmick for those readers who don’t care about the game details and want to skip ahead). And as usual, Sachar is masterful at portraying the conflicting and not always admirable behavior of adults. Alton is a great protagonist, smart but young, eager to be recognized but scared of ridicule.

I loved reading it from start to finish. The Cardturner is a great read for teens looking for a gutsy, brainy book. It looks like the paperback just hit in October. It's definitely a worthy offering by the author of the beloved Holes.