Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss by Frederick Barthelme, Steven Barthelme ISBN: 0-15-601070-4 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 (42 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Some insights into the world of addiction
Comment: The authors, two writer brothers who teach at the same university, slipped into a gambling fever, losing a quarter million dollars in the years following their aged parents' deaths. This is a lucid, compelling book: the sense of addiction, the timeless, weird feeling one gets when gambling, is brought vividly to life. There's also some measure of self-analysis: the brothers conclude that guilt and grief fueled their two-day-long losing sprees, and they appear to aptly judged themselves. They are falsely and bizarrely accused of cheating the casino (they lose thousands in the night they're accused); their description of the indictment and booking, their sudden notoriety and helplessness at the indifferent, lying corporation that is the casino, is a scarily real morality tale. On the minus side, the book does engage in a bit too much of this analysis; it gets repetitive. Also, they drop the story of their indictment too early, leaving the conclusion (dismissal of the charges on the DA's request) unexplained.
Rating: 5
Summary: Drowning in Grief by Losing Their Shirts
Comment: I thought this book was excellent: a memoir by two brothers who lost $250,000 in riverboat casinos. They describe in detail how they would spend 12 hours or more losing thousands in the slot machines, or, more often, at blackjack. And how it escalated slowly, and then how the addiction got completely out-of-hand after both of their elderly parents died. Apparently, their pattern on each gambling spree was to lose a lot, and then spend the rest of the night (and sometimes day) winning back the lost amount. What amazed me is that even after they were indicted for a crime allegedly committed while gambling, they continued their addiction, albeit in another casino. Astounding! This memoir is remarkable on many counts. For one, it is beautifully written (both authors are writing professors), and also, they attempt to analyze their behavior, the big "WHY"? I commend them for revealing so many intimate details. It seems that perhaps the loss of their father, who had been a brilliant architect but an insensitive father to both, put them over the edge. Raised not to show feelings, coupled with their belief that their parents were their only true "community", perhaps put them in a hard, "no win" position when they died. And the only way to "win" (or attempt to) was at the casino. They are excellent at drawing out the allure of gambling - that, no matter win or lose, they were finally "feeling" something at the blackjack table. A sad tale of an attempt to deal with loss in a desperate, impossible way.
Rating: 4
Summary: Of Nepotism and Naivete
Comment: First, the obvious: neither Barthelme brother would have cushy college-teaching jobs had not their eldest brother, Donald, been a trendy post-modernist icon. The younger brother, Steven B., has managed to publish exactly one (1) book of short stories; Rick, the larger, plumper one, has some sort of gossamer reputation among those who like trailer-park fiction. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of better writers with better qualifications who would kill and maim with gleeful abandon for jobs at Southern Mississippi -- and who would devote themselves to those jobs, and to their students, rather than run off two or three times a week to squander Daddy's money at the blackjack tables [disclaimer: the undersigned thinks she is one of those "better writers"]. That said, this slender volume does indeed fascinate: I read it straight through in five hours, and so will most readers of a literary bent. The brothers B. have in fact done me a service, one years of shrink visits and antidepressants have failed to do -- in one stroke, they have made me glad, glad, glad that I abandoned the academy, failed to obtain a Ph.D., and find myself teaching high school English thirty years after my Iowa fiction MFA. Theirs is a cautionary tale, of what may happen to smart people with minimal reality contact and few, if any, day-to-day responsibilities. The cavernous lack of common-sense knowledge they display in their forays to the Gulf Coast casinos would be inconceivable to anyone who's punched a clock or handled an insurance claim. They are actually surprised to find that casinos have a corporate identity! Gee, they thought those people were their friends ... gahh! As for the dead father they apparently despised, I felt sorry for D. Barthelme Sr. His hard work, his habits of deep thinking and attention to detail, become monstrosities in the ham-hands of his two youngest sons, who in fifty-plus years on this planet have not managed to obtain perspective one. The book is good -- the descriptions of gambling's intoxications, the minute processing of each foolish and silly and self-deluding thought as it arises, are executed with consummate skill -- and yet one can't help concluding, as the memoir shrinks down upon itself into a puddle of anticlimax, that six months or so in prison would have been good for these men, taught them a painful life-lesson or two. Crucial to an understanding of the brothers' plight is the fact that neither Barthelme bothered to have children, thus giving themselves the right to be babies forever. They are not so much perpetual adolescents as they are pre-pubescent (wife and girlfriend notwithstanding), mired forever in Fiftiesland where, if you want to be a cowboy, you just put on the hat and yell, "Bang-bang!" They are not intellectual -- or accomplished -- enough for the ivory-tower defense they so quickly assume; what they are, are second- and third-tier journeymen blessed with a famous name and a glib ability to sling the relativist Crisco. While one may end up wishing Barthelme Sr., who unlike his sons appeared to be able to distinguish right from wrong, had willed his inheritance somewhere else, this reviewer is grateful for the folly of his heirs. A job at Southern Mississippi may be gravy, but that thin gruel isn't nourishing. Real life is the real meat.
 |
Title: Dying Right: The Death With Dignity Movement by Daniel Hillyard, John Dombrink ISBN: 0415927994 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
 |
Title: Compulsive by Jim Nelson ISBN: 188945916X Publisher: Western Reflections Pub. Date: 01 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Bob the Gambler by Frederick Barthelme ISBN: 039592474X Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 15 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places (Rand Studies in Policy Analysis) by Robert J. Maccoun ISBN: 052179997X Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
 |
Title: Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage by David Moats ISBN: 015101017X Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 02 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
