Former Connecticut Congressman Bob Steele will discuss and sign his new novel, The Curse: Big-Time Gambling’s Seduction of a Small New England Town, at the Lyme Public Library on Thursday, April 18, at 7 pm. Steele’s novel, which has generated wide interest across the state, comes at a time when Connecticut’s casinos face the prospect of heavy new competition from New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and there is growing political pressure to legalize Internet gambling. The novel is set against the casino gambling explosion that hit southeastern Connecticut during the 1990s, when two Indian tribes built the world’s two biggest gambling casinos in the southeastern corner of the state. The story begins with the Pequot War in 1637, then jumps 350 years as a Connecticut family becomes embroiled in a struggle to block a third casino that threatens the family’s town and ancestral home. WNPR/Connecticut Public Radio’s John Dankosky calls the novel “fascinating” and Connecticut author Martin Shapiro has described it as “compelling and timely….an epic story of history, money and politics that will make you wonder where America is headed.” The book is available in softcover from Levellers Press (www.levellerspress.com) and Amazon.com, and as an ebook from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Books will be available at the library the evening of the presentation. The Library is located at 482 Hamburg Road (Route 156), Lyme. The program is free and open to the public. Please call 860-434-2272 or email programreg@lymepl.org to register.
