TOM FOX: Herald of the Hustler Era

Fox, left, forged a mutually beneficial relationship with Minnesota Fats, who was featured in Fox's groundbreaking stories about pool culture. Fox later penned Fats' biography, introduced here in a 1966 promotion.

"The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies," the only book that Fox ever got published, was released by World Publishing soon after Fox moved to Philadelphia. Although out of print now, it's easy enough to find on eBay.com or Amazon.com. During the writing process, Tom and Karen Fox spent weeks holed up with Fatty and Fatty's then-wife, Evelyn. One can hardly imagine the impossibility of working with Minnesota Fats. Karen recalled that he was so jarringly hyperactive, so prone to such terrifying attacks of ego, that rarely could they get him to sit still long enough to finish his own stories. To fill in all the little details of his life, Tom turned to Evelyn. And then Tom, through the magic of his writing, put it all into Fats' voice.

As it tells Fatty's story in an approximation of Fats' own words, the book seems more like a collection of Paul Bunyan tall tales than Woodward-and-Bernstein journalism. But to quibble with the facts is to miss the point. "The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies" - as Fox's writing generally does - gets at the real truth of Fats and the era in which he lived: larger-than-life, colorful, magical, magnificent.

And then there was the second book. If "The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies" is one of the great books of pocket billiards, then "Born on the Rail" is one of the sport's great lost books. I stumbled upon evidence for this second book several years ago, as I went through a box of letters while researching my own book, "Hustler Days." Evidence shows that Fox completed "Born on the Rail" sometime in 1969, and then sent it to World Publishing that year. The book appeared to have been an anthology of stories about all the greats then playing.

In an Oct. 2, 1969, letter to Lassiter, Fox described his work on "Born on the Rail," and divulged vague plans to write a third book about Lassiter himself. (It's unclear whether Fox ever started the Lassiter book.) The letter is written on Philadelphia Daily News letterhead, and references a chance meeting with someone by the name of "Roy McHugh," apparently a mutual friend.

This is how it begins:
"I talked with Roy McHugh the other night and he said he saw you in Pittsburgh, and you had mentioned not hearing from me. He said you wondered if I had forgotten about our talk about a Luther Lassiter book, a la the Minnesota Fats tome.

"Well, dear Luther Clement, I have not forgotten. 'Deed I haven't. I've had problems, problems with publishers.

"For a starter, World Publishing Co., which published Fatty's book, commissioned me to do an anthology, a collection of short stories of pool players, you included. I completed the manuscript and was ready to autograph first edition copies, when there was a coup d'etat at World. Roy Channells, the World Senior veep, the fellow who bought the Fat Man book, was unceremoniously retired, and, what's more, all the editors - including the fellow who edited the Fatty book - were washed overboard. Suddenly, the only person I knew at World was a sexy switchboard operator from Russia by the name of Linda.

"This followed with my being notified that World would not publish the anthology - which I planned to title "Born on the Rail" - and I found myself stuck with an unpublished manuscript. Complications continued with the new regime at World failing to oblige my polite requests to return my manuscript. I have stewed and boiled about the development (the absolute total lack of even an answer to my requests that the manuscript be returned) and there were moments when I thought of entraining to New York and sticking the guy's fingers in a toaster."

The letter continues in that vein for a few more paragraphs, with Fox fuming a while about the lost manuscript and fantasizing further about toasters. A bit later, after getting back to the topic at hand, Fox wrote that "Mr. Channells, the ex-World veep, is now back in Cleveland and intent on getting back into the publishing field. He wants to do another pool book; in fact, he wants to look over the anthology with an eye to publishing it."

He closes the letter with a simple "Keep the Faith," and signs only his first name, Tom.

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