Atlanta Daily News

 "Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?" Ellen Ashford
     Anyone who expects this book to be only about the game of Bid Whist is in for a very pleasant surprise.  Although the main characters are
consummate bid whist players who play together at least twice monthly, over the course of many years, the real story is not about the game of Bid Whist, but it focuses on the relationship that "The Players" enjoy with each other, as well as the ups and downs encountered in their unconditional friendship. 

While this is not Christian fiction, there is an underlying spiritual tone
to the book. References are made to the church that "The Players" helped to organize in their hometown and in which they are active participants, and the players' spiritual sides are evident as they work through personal & family challenges - from infidelity to problems with their children.  It is
also refreshing to note that this book contains no vulgarity and it is not
age or gender sensitive - it will be as enjoyable to the younger urban
reader as it is to the seasoned more mature audience.  I highly recommend
this book.
                          C. Elayne Harper

ChicagoDefender

Saturday, April 17, 2004

By Pat Williams

Some fictional writers seem to strive toward accomplishing one goal: to make readers believe that their stories are real or could be real.  Rare, but sometimes one is lucky enough to run across a body of work that actually pulls it off.  Who is the Joker In Bid Whist by Ellen Ashford is such a book.  Ashford uses the incredibly competitive and seriously fun card  game Bid Whist as the backdrop to her thought-provoking story.

A very light-weight player of the game myself, I found it refreshing that the author was courteous enough to open the book with a lexicon of sorts- summarizing and defining various plays and moves of the game.

To an avid Bid Whist player, perhaps this “introduction” may seem a bit condescending, but is safe to say, most folks will find the provision absolutely beneficial especially once they sink their teeth into the meat of the story.

The story centers around a circle of middle-aged friend-some widowed, some married, some parents-but, it is one couple, Henry and Della Miles and their spun-out-of-control relationship that puts the spin on the story.

In particularly, it is Henry, the proverbial playboy and maverick gamer who just can’t seem to respect his marriage that carries the weight of the story.  His long-standing antics, indiscretions and peccadilloes with loose and lusty women propels his patient wife, Della into a state of vengeance.

As the story plays out, just as the friends card games, the once longsuffering and passive wife ultimately gives way to severe and calculating persona.  Della typifies the adage, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Spurned and out for revenge, Della begins to play her life like she plays her hand at Bid Whist-cool-, methodically and dangerous.

Early on we realize that Henry has spent a lifetime or wifetime honing his hand at love like he’s honed his game—loose, fast, and instinctively.  The couple’s friends Lillian, Pearl, Harry and Holly Ann who are placed wonderfully around the lives and the card table of the book’s main characters are loyal, idiosyncratic and somewhat dysfunctional.

The story’s setting takes place in the 1960’s.  The book’s liner explains that’s “when relationships and social norms started to revolutionize into what we have today.”  Indeed.  And, it is Ashford’s historical slant that really breathes reality into her characters.

What’s fascinating about the author’s approach, is that she didn’t use this subtext as a means to grandstand or get on a soapbox about her personal feelings regarding the tumultuous decade.  A decade that forced a nation to come to grips with the age-old hypocrisies and stripped a generation of its former innocence.

Ashford plays it straight and let her characters simply live out their lives which seems to evolve with the times.  These characters as the book explains had been playing for 10 years by the time the reader has been introduced to them.

So, it becomes all the more clearer why Della begins to come into her own sensing something that she had never sensed before: power.  Power to choose her happiness, power to speak out, power to act out, power to act in secret and the power to realize that she didn’t have to remain powerless in a sinking marriage.

Another aspect of the story that the author really excels in (and that I wish more stories that take place in today’s contemporary settings would do) is that it doesn’t glamorize the human frailties of adultery or fornication.

It doesn’t verbally preach against them, but it depicts the harsh realities of what these situations really do and threaten to do in the lives of those who fall prey to such temptations.  Which, says so much than tongue-lashing could ever do!  It is here also that the book shows how Henry’s “playing” and “gaming” away from the card table has left his young adult daughter, Bonnie feeling emotionally isolated from her father who was to busy chasing skirts to put quality time into her rearing.

Who is the Joker In Bid Whist is such a phenomenal story.  It tells a classic tale of love and relationships.  That teaches a thing or two about the results of playing the wrong cards in both the game Bid Whist and life.

Bid Whist

What Happens When Players

Live The Same Way They Play

The Game?

By Pat Pulliam, PhD

The title asks, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?”  The author Ellen Ashford wants the reader to answer the question.

  Ashford understands Bid Whist as a game and as a significant social function among Black America.  Most have either played or watched others play.

 She learned about the game while growing up in Muskegon Heights, Michigan.

“My parents, aunts and cousins used to play Bid Whist every two weeks as a family game,” she said.  “They would take us children along.  We’d play our games while they played theirs.”

 As a teen she helped her brother in Detroit host several games and served up meals for serious players.

 Like Ashford’s relatives, the whist players in, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?” play regularly, every two weeks at the home of one of the players, enjoying food served by the host.  They have fun—laughing, signifying and talking as the cards hit the table.

 There the similarity ends.  The author says the book is not about her family.

 “Playing Bid Whist when I was growing up, later in college and as an adult, I observed players living the same way they played the game,” she said.  “I noticed that when people reneged at life by not playing by the rules, their lives became shattered.”

 Ashford states the rules for Bid Whist at the beginning of the book.

In the Chapters that follow, she builds an intriguing story around the dealers, players and trash-talking losers who are determined to win by any means necessary.

 Individuals renege, run Bostons or get lost in relationships with jokers.

 This group of friends live in the imaginary town of Shalom, Michigan.  They moved “up North” from “down South” at different times and from different states, bring with them their dreams, hopes and personal challenges.

 Between being invited to rent parties or a card party, the new person in town met the others.

Besides the regular card games, this group of whist players is especially proud of First Baptist Church where Rev. Clifton is the pastor.

 The whist players built First Baptist from the basement up.  Each is active in the church that has about 500 members.  Only 150 members attend.

 Henry and Harry are the head deacons.

 As a husband and father, Harry takes whist –life—seriously.

 “He is everything a woman could want, Ashford said.  Henry is different.

 “The whist players are life-like but are not from real life”  she said.  “We all know women like Della who gets messed on and say, ‘I’m not taking it anymore’ and start working to better their lives.  As they do, others take notice.”

 Della goes through the water more than once on her way to cleaning up her act.

 Henry and Della’s daughter, Bonnie, is about to graduate from college.

 Della is a beautician.  Henry is a sideline barber who works full-time in an office at a local manufacturing plant.  They have provided Bonnie with all the best that they could afford.

 Just before her graduation, Bonnie and Uncle Chester have a long conversation.  He reminds her that she is standing on other people’s shoulders.  He advises her to remember who her people are and the pain they have gone through to get her where she is.  He tells her to vote—“because that’s what all the commotion is about down there, allowing us to vote.”

 The commotion Uncle Chester talks about is happening in outside of Shalom in the real world of the 1960’s and the civil rights movement.

 The bid whist players are not too concerned with the marches, Malcolm X’s speaking tours, sit-ins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches.  It is important to them that Rev Shuttleworth is coming to town, to speak at their church!’

 Bonnie encounter with racism at the university puts them in touch.

 Through the university scenes and other vignettes, Ashford adds substance to the story. 

She keeps it above the frivolous preoccupations of bid whist players caught up in playing the “game.”

 If you are a regular whist player, a used-to-be regular or one who just watch, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?”  is sure to grab your attention, and you’ll come up with an answer.