Fascinating New Read: Kings Of New York

The world of professional competitive chess has always been shrouded in intrigue, from its role in the cold war, with the infamous Fischer-Spassky match of 1972—when an eccentric American genius smashed 25 years of Soviet chess hegemony—marking the beginning of the end of the cold war, to recent teenage chess prodigy suicides. Kings of New York gets beyond the myths to explore this fascinating and compelling world and its unconventional cast of chess fanatics.

Edward R Murrow School, Brooklyn, New York. An unconventional group of kids at an unconventional school located in the heart of the most unconventional city in America is making headlines - with a chess club. In Kings of New York, writer Michael Weinreb spends a year with the Murrow chess team, from cash games in Washington Square Park to state tournaments in Nashville, bringing to life an eccentric cast of characters.

Meet Sal, Lithuanian self-proclaimed ‘stupid, lazy genius’; Ilya, a shy Ukrainian immigrant; Oscar Santana, a Puerto Rican teen; Nataliya, the only girl on the team; and coach Eliot Weiss – a former pro ice-hockey player turned maths teacher. They’re a true cross-section of New York: immigrants, natives, rich, poor, black, and white, kids who couldn’t be more different except when it comes to one thing – chess.

The Kings of New York is the story of how these eight boys and girls battle their differences to come together as a team, and how they face their victories and disappointments. Above all, it’s the story of a group of gifted misfits searching for the silence and order and strange beauty that can be found within those sixty-four squares on a chess board.

Michael Weinreb is a graduate of Penn State and the Boston University creative writing programme. He has worked as a sports and features reporter at the Los Angeles Times and Newsday, and has been cited in the Best American Sports writing anthology. His short fiction has been published in Nerve and other literary journals and he is a recipient of the Ray Bradbury Short Story Fellowship. He lives in New York City.

Published by Yellow Jersey Press on 22th March 2007, £11.99 Trade Paperback.