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J.P. Donleavy, author of ”The Ginger Man” and other novels, attempts to parody game manuals with this history and guide to the ”accoutrements, rules, conduct and regimen” of De Alfonce tennis, his quirky adaptation for the very rich of the traditional game. The history is fun, as far as it goes (slightly less than half the book), a whodunit that never gets unvareled but provides along the way some wonderful characters, gothic settings and gentell lust. Taken further, it could have been a wonderful novel. The remaining encyclopedic listings of the do`s and don`t`s of the tennis game strain for humor and fall flat.
