Lovers and Gamblers was published by W.H. Allen in 1977, and it represents Collins’s first fully realized panoramic novel — the kind of multi-character, multi-continent epic that would become her signature. The novel follows Al King, a rock superstar on a world tour, and Dallas, a beautiful woman with a dark past who is assigned to write his biography. Their trajectories — his from fame toward self-destruction, hers from exploitation toward independence — intersect in a narrative that spans continents and milieux.
Collins’s rock-and-roll world is rendered with insider knowledge: the groupies, the drugs, the corporate machinery of the music industry, the emptiness behind the glamour, and the specific loneliness of the man who is worshipped by millions but known by no one. Al King is a convincing portrait of male celebrity — a man whose talent is real but whose humanity is being systematically destroyed by the industry that profits from it.
The novel’s ambition — multiple storylines, dozens of characters, settings that range from Las Vegas to Latin America — anticipates the epic scope of Chances and Hollywood Wives. Collins was developing the narrative technique that would make her later novels so successful: the ability to sustain multiple plotlines simultaneously, cutting between them with the rhythm of a television drama.
Collecting Lovers and Gamblers
First edition (W.H. Allen, London, 1977): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $25–$60
- Without jacket: $5–$15