Word Freak
Scrabble may be truly called America's game. But for every group of "living-room players" there is someone who is "at one with the board."
In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis explores the underground world of colorful characters for whom the Scrabble game is life. Fatsis tells the story of an iconic American game invented by unemployed architect Alfred Butts during the Great Depression that grew into a one of the most successful games of all time—commercially and intellectually, joining the pantheon of mind games with centuries-old titans like chess and backgammon. Along the way, Fatsis memorizes thousands of words, competes in dozens of tournaments around the country, and chronicles his own obsession and development as a player from novice to expert.
More than a book about hardcore Scrabble players, Word Freak is an examination of brilliance, memory, language, competition, and the human mind—and a celebration of the creative powers lurking within us all. Since its publication in 2001 to wide acclaim and bestseller status, Word Freak has spawned hundreds of tournament players—including multiple national champions, not to mention an author’s daughter ranked in the Top 20 in North America—and fueled a cottage industry of books about quirky worlds.
Word Freak is a groundbreaking profile of a subculture and a classic of participatory journalism.
Praise for Word Freak
A New York Times bestseller and Notable Book of 2001
“A can't-put-it-down narrative that dances between memoir and reportage."
— Bernadette Murphy, Los Angeles Times
“Fatsis . . . writes with affectionate zeal about the game and the fraternity of brilliant, lonely, and otherwise dysfunctional oddballs it attracts."
—Janet Maslin, New York Times
“Fatsis is a wonderful writer, and one of the charms of Word Freak is his ability to analyze the workings of obsession even while recognizing it in himself.”
— Patricia T. O’Conner, New York Times Book Review
“Fatsis’s marvelously absorbing excursion into the world of Scrabble . . . is a walk on the wild side of words and ventures into the zone where language and mathematics intersect.”
— San Jose Mercury News
“Word Freak has an impassioned subtitle, and it lives up to every word."
— People
“A fascinating look into a thriving cultish world that’s best admired from an armchair.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Funny, thoughtful, character-rich, unchallengeably winning writing."
— The Atlantic Monthly
“As they say in the Scrabble world, Fatsis got great tiles when he set out to write this book—a slew of memorable characters and a competitive subculture as bizarre as any I’ve ever seen in sport.”
— Sports Illustrated writer and author Frank Deford