Girls' Poker Night

Dissatisfied both with writing a “Single Girl on the Edge/Ledge/Verge” column and with her boyfriend, Ruby Capote sends her best columns and a six-pack of beer to the editor of The New York News and lands herself a job in the big city. There, Ruby undertakes the venerable tradition of Poker Night—a way (as men have always known) to eat, drink, smoke, analyze, interrupt one another, share stories, and, most of all, raise the stakes. When Ruby falls for her boss, though, all bets are off. . . .

Ruby Capote, the narrator of Girls' Poker Night, is your quintessential New York cynic. This persona serves her just fine in her job as a humor columnist; she's unafraid to write the most humiliating details about herself or her friends, because she truly doesn't care. But over the course of a year or so of Wednesday night poker parties with her pals, Ruby is forced to face her past--especially her sorrow over her father, who committed suicide after he left Ruby's mother. Meanwhile, Ruby comes to terms with her budding feelings for Michael, the editor of her newspaper, who, in a neat twist, turns out to be estranged from his only child (shades of Ruby's lost father). Davis, a former writer for The Late Show, does a fine job of maintaining Ruby's sharp humor while leading her through a minefield of emotional discovery. --Claire Dederer