The one thing that the reader should be aware of is that the subtitle ought to be the title. He doesn't really deliver much of a life of Polly Bemis, because the sources are so divergent that it isn't always clear what happened, and the Bemises left almost no personal information. The book is in fact half over before either of them is really introduced. He tries to keep the story alive in the early part of the book by noting that such and such a year is probably the year that Polly came to the United States, and so forth. He discusses the sources more than he crafts a biography. This isn't entirely his fault, because of the problems with his sources, but that's not what I was expecting from the title.

Getting past that, it is an interesting look at the first Chinese in the West, and the conflicts and hostility that they met with. If you read the book expecting that, you will probably find it rewarding. ( )

There is a quote in the beginning of the book which sums it up :
"...because you will soon see, it is all truth and no story."

This is not a story, it is straight facts upon boring fact and should not be considered a historical fiction. It reads more like a college paper.

Very unhappy with this choice. If you are doing research on the topic it's the book for you. There is no drama, no personal touches.. ( )

Brilliant sleuthing ( )

“Imagine "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Deadwood" hand-stitched together and given a novel slant as a mini-epic of Chinese immigrant life. That suggests the polyglot vitality of Christopher Corbett's new nonfiction book, "The Poker Bride.
With "The Poker Bride," Corbett cements his claim as an ace surveyor of America's borderland of fable.”

Michael Sragow in The Baltimore Sun, Feb. 14, 2010

“In the 19th-century American West, for a white man to marry a Chinese woman was almost unheard of; to have won her in a poker game was also unusual. Yet here Corbett (who teaches journalism at UMBC) tells how the Chinese concubine Polly became the bride of Charles Bemis, a saloon keeper who took her to his remote Idaho gold-mining community. Around this story, Corbett gracefully weaves the history of the Chinese in the 19th-century American West, from the arrival of the first "celestials," as they were known, through the anti-Chinese agitation at century’s end. He pays particular attention to the importation of girls from southern China and tells just how Polly’s story ultimately became known to the world.
VERDICT Corbett’s intriguing book will appeal to readers interested in the narrative history of the American West and tales of the mining camps. Corbett provides a sound bibliography and refers to specific sources within his narrative, though serious students will prefer works with full editorial apparatus, such as Gunther Barth’s Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850–1870. Corbett’s accomplished book will engage history buffs and general readers alike.”

Library Journal
(*starred review)

In reviewing "The Poker Bride" the New York Times Book Review says that "Corbett's accomplishment in pulling this dark history into a popular narrative is all the more impressive when you consider the difficulty of reporting on a foreign population that lived mainly outside the reach of census takers and journalists ....... . . on the whole, Corbett handles a great deal of sordid material with sensitivity. In restoring to the Poker Bride a more honest and complete history, Corbett undoes generations of self-serving mythology. And that may be Polly Bemis's real stroke of luck."

-Dominique Browning in The New York Times ( )