Contract bridge—the version of the game we play today—and Sandy Balfour’s father were both conceived in 1925 and thrust, blinking uncertainly, into the fractured world of 1926. But while Balfour’s father was the child of a bank clerk and a schoolteacher and was born in a modest apartment in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, the game he came to love had an altogether more distinguished lineage.


Vulnerable in Hearts chronicles the eight decades of Balfour’s father’s life and the same period in the history and development of bridge, a game that has enticed players from Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Gates and Clint Eastwood. First taught the game as a child by his mildly eccentric father, Balfour is drawn to bridge as a means to try to understand him, but soon discovers the global empire of the game itself. As the narrative moves from the bridge clubs of Moscow to the World Bridge Olympiad in Istanbul, Balfour explores the complex relationships of bridge and history, rules and empire, father and son.


Part memoir, part history, part game, Vulnerable in Hearts is a wryly entertaining account of how we communicate with one another, why we play games, and how we love.