Beth Harmon is orphaned at age eight when her mother dies in a car crash. Growing up in an orphanage in Kentucky, she is taught chess by the custodian Mr. Shaibel, and soon becomes a chess prodigy. While at the orphanage, she struggles with an addiction to tranquilizers. In her teens she is adopted and begins her rapid rise in the chess world, eventually challenging the top Soviet players. As her skill and profile grows, so does her dependency on tranquilizers and eventually alcohol.[8]
Concept and inspiration
Diana Lanni, a New York chess player contemporary with Tevis who represented the United States at the 1982 Chess Olympiad in Lucerne, suggested she was at least in part the inspiration for the Beth Harmon character, and that her friend grandmaster Larry Kaufman was the inspiration for the book's Harry Beltik character. Lanni thinks it is plausible she got Tevis' attention when playing at the outdoor tables at Washington Square Park as the only woman, and as someone with depression and addiction problems.[9] Other real life chess players said to have inspired the character include Bobby Fischer and Tevis himself.[10][11][12] Tevis, however, explicitly denied any of his characters were based on any real life people. He also said he found it more interesting to write a female character.[13]
After several aborted attempts to bring the novel to screen, Netflix announced they had acquired the rights, with Anya Taylor-Joy confirmed as the show's lead, on March 19, 2019, with a Twitter post by Netflix Queue.[14][15][16]
See also
Judit Polgar, the female chess player who has come closest to challenging for the World Chess Championship
