Check out the back cover of Hooked on Chess:

Flip to the front cover.  Men playing chess.  Serious chess.  Shirts, ties, suits, hats.  Pensive faces.  Onlookers.  Newspapers and discussions in the background.  More chess.  The New York Academy of Chess and Checkers.  Fisher’s.  The Flea House.

In between the covers of this memoir, Bill Hook literally places his life story.

Born in 1925, spared induction into the military during World War II due to a bad bout with tuberculosis, Hook recovered, only to fall victim to three lifetime fevers: for chess, for gambling, and for painting.

Most of his early pawn-pushing happened in the (in)famous chess club on 42^nd Street in Manhattan – source of the front cover photo.  He would rub shoulders with the odd characters and play chess there for a quarter century.  As the author paints it with his words:

…The place was busier than ever: some of the regulars included dapper Jack Schwartz; Richard Gilsten, who played a strangling defense in Scrabble; old musician jack Bernstein, who knew Ravel in Paris; Argentinian José Serenyi; Puerto Rican Chico; the immaculately dressed kosher chicken killer; the eccentric who often complimented his opponent’s ‘spluvetuvious moves’; Kiven Plessett, winner of an intercollegiate championship; Lawrence Tierney, who played the title role in the film ‘Dillinger’; Harold Schonberg, music critic of the New York Times; pianist Leonid Hambro; Rivkin the matchmaker, who would set up hustlers and customers; the limping ‘Jersey’; non-smiling Starker, the painter; exuberant painter Norman Raeben, (the son of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem), who had a studio in the Carnegie Hall building, and would take some of his students to Paris once a year; the head of the FBI’s New York office, who played checkers; horse-player Saperstein, who made a big score on long-inactive ‘Knockdown’, which played $105 to win; and big-money players Adelman, Willie the waiter, charismatic Zeeman, animated Israeli Jack, Stewart the Chewer, Two-hair, who placed two long strands of hair over his bald head, and occasionally the Haitian Minister of the Interior…

Life was exciting, money was in short supply, and chess was scattered all over the board.  Art, however, was making its ascendancy, as at the same time Hook took classes and entered paintings into competition.  When he won the Hallgarten award at the National Academy of Design, it came with two prizes: a cash award, and the subsequent ability to marry his sweetheart, Mimi.

There followed more chess, casino blackjack as a source of income, and travel.  Painting continued, and photography as well.  After pleasant visits there, Bill and Mimi bought some land and built a home on Cooper Island in the British Virgin Islands in the early 1960s.

As always, taking advantage of the opportunities that came his way, Hook played on the team the British Virgin Islands sent to the chess Olympiads – 16 times!  His world of chess friends expanded and expanded again.

Hooked on Chess is a very pleasant read, taking the reader across seven decades of personal chess experiences.  The author has no axes to grind, no arguments to make or refute, and often seems to experience the world of chess in wide-eyed wonder as he passes through it – perhaps one clue to the contented look on his face in the back photo.

The book is enhanced by about 120 photographs, of both the big names and the little people in chess.  [Editor: these photos also include some samples of the artist's paintings, including the examples below.]

There are a few of the author’s games included, a modesty probably better overcome by his typical generosity, as Hook acquitted himself well in his chess battles, including taking the gold medal for best overall individual performance in the 1980 Olympiad; it would have been nice to see a few more game scores.

How strange this memoir would have been had it taken the path of a story titled, say, I Was Right And You Were Wrong, or maybe I Stood While Lessers Fell Beside Me.  Instead, it is simply Hooked on Chess – and that is certainly good enough.

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