“The ace of spades is as black and as bad as things get—or as good, in the sense that Rhett Butler, Adam Cartwright, John Shaft, or Achilles is good. The ace of spades also is real, the most real, in that our willingness to “call a spade a spade” shows us to be forthright, clear-eyed, realistic.”

—James McManus, from Positively Fifth Street, 2003.