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Summary: If you ever have gone to a Riverboat Casino
Review: This book is for anyone who has every gone to a riverboat casino. If you gamble and think that you'll allow this to be a leisure activity; read this book. You will not only see yourself; but you will see how these casino's manipulate you out of your last dollar. It's all a game to them. This book definately hits the mark. I found their observations true and can easily see why they did this...as the casino's call it; a release from everyday life. An excellent read.
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Summary: Surprising geographical deformations
Review: This is a disturbing story, but before you take Kirkus Reviews at their word you might want to pull out an atlas and check whether the Mississippi River does in fact flow through Gulfport, Mississippi. If it does, casino gambling has screwed up the Gulf Coast even worse than the Barthelmes' story would indicate.
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Summary: An extraordinary tale of two professors turned gamblers
Review: This is an engrossing tale of two brothers, college professors and respected authors, who gamble away their inheritance, a quarter-million bucks, in the sleazy casino boats on the Mississippi coast. The title Double Down could refer to the recent deaths of their mother and father, or to a play in the game of blackjack wherein you can double your bet, "double-down". How could these two brilliant, clear-thinking professor/writers lose all of that money, knowing well that that house had the advantage, and with such steadfast purpose? Was it temporary dementia caused by the loss of their parents, a kind of bereavement ritual? Did the sudden unaccustomed wealth go to their heads? Did they feel undeserving of the inherited wealth and unconsciously look for an ignominious way to dump it? Or did they simply want to try their luck? It's an entertaining story written in the wonderfully clear Barthleme style and, as background to the story, there's a wealth of information about their talented family. The bizarre punch line is that these respectable, conservative brothers, after losing their inheritance and more, are busted by security at the Grand Casino in Biloxi and accused of collusion with a blackjack dealer -- cheating! The Grand Casino filed their preposterous charge with the Harrison County district attorney who, in turn (gambling casinos must have political clout), indicted and charged them with felony conspiracy to defraud the casino. The chapter in which the brothers are booked and fingerprinted will stay with you for a long time. If you read this book, and I recommend it highly, keep in mind that the most important thing is not that they are "professor/writers" who got in an unlikely and unseemly jam but that they are brothers and ultimately it is a family matter.
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Summary: They Should Have Learned Better!
Review: This is an excellent but somewhat depressing book. The authors are wonderful writers who really explore the connections between their personal livesand their gambling lives. However, they mention that they are well read in the literature of blackjack and yet they play for all intents and purposes like suckers. They should have really studied Frank Scoblete's books, or Arnold Snyder's or any one of a dozen excellent authors and really prepared themselves for battle. I think they almost wanted to lose as some kind of pathetic attempt at self-sympathy. This is a cautionary book for everyone who gambles. But if you are an intelligent gambler then make it your business to pick up some good books by Scoblete, Snyder, Wong and others.
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Summary: Interesting book on compulsive gambling
Review: This is an interesting book and quite similar to my own story. I had very little interest in gambling until I came into a large inheritance and got hooked on casino gambling. The authors' description of their trips to the gambling casino seems somehow prettified compared to my experience of hundreds of trips to various casinos. They never seem to be exhausted or desperate after their all-night trips to the casino. The other gamblers in the casino are happy when someone else gets a good hand in video poker. The casino workers are as nice as can be even though they have modest salaries and cannot enjoy seeing people throw out large sums of money. Most surprisingly the brothers never seem to be in a fury after losing thousands of dollars in a single everning. They are quite calm about the whole thing. This definitely does not resemble my experience. Compulsive gambling is a fatiguing, emotionally draining, desperate activity. One other item I will mention is that I have never heard of a casino accuse someone of cheating who was not cheating. I however have knowledge of a gambler who was accused of cheating who was cheating, but the casino could not prove it and he is officially a non-cheater. This happens all the time.
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Summary: Intriguing and interesting look at compulsive gambling
Review: This is an intriguing look at the pitfalls of obsessive gambling, yet the book doesn't include as much gambling-specific descriptions as you might expect, or want. Rather, the book tends to focus on more of the psychological and familial events that exacerbated the brothers' gambling behavior. The is more an examination of how they came to be compulsive gamblers, instead of an in-depth examination of the actual gambling and the ramifications of gambling on their lives and families. The wives always appear only briefly in the background, and while you understand they are definitely *not* fans of the gambling, the authors never delve into the issues the gambling raised in their families (i.e. was there ever a problem with groceries, the kids' school tuition, the mortgage?).
Over the course of two years, the Barthelme brothers lose nearly a quarter million dollars on the Mississippi riverboats. To top that off, they end up charged with attempting to defraud their favorite casino.
The writing is fluid and insightful. Most books with multiple authors are somewhat jagged in the switching voices of the writers -- yet that is not the case here. The brothers write with a unified voice, and their experience as published authors is very apparent in their writing technique. This background helps to make this a more accessible non-fiction book to read. I rarely read non-fiction, and was wary about this one, and it was a very pleasant surprise to discover this is a deft and extremely well written book. Recommended.
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Summary: Strangely Sad, Strangely Infuriating
Review: This is good reading for anyone curious about the psychology of gambling. It provides a haunting, fascinating description of how two people almost ruined themselves as a reaction to the death of their parents. But it is also strangely sad and infurating. The saddest thing about this book is not that the authors were problem gamblers and lost tons of money. The saddest thing about the book is that, though they no longer gamble, the authors still hold the very set of beliefs that pushed them into gambling. Their own interpretation of their past addiction is that they used it to avoid what they now still regard as the "fact" that life is nothing but a dreary sequence of dreary chores, unless you are part of a close family of origin, or have children of your own. There is something very condenscending about this claim - insulting to those of us who find other valuable things in life besides genetic ties (after all here are people who have neither parents nor children and who still find life valuable, why, even fun sometimes!). . One wonders how the authors' wives feel about a book that makes it look like they count so little in the lives of their husbands. In short, judging by the book, I prefer the authors' past seleves - cheerful, witty, irresponsible gamblers- over their present selves - two terminally sad fairly priviledged people who, instead of fighting their depression, cultivate it, believing it to be a sign of a deep insight into some dark heart of reality which the rest of us shallow people just don't get Frankly, I am not convinced. I cannot totally condemn the reader who feels a wicked urge to say, "look, I know it's very hard to lose one's parents, even if the parents lived to an old age and died of natural causes, but you know, it happens to all of us, and it was long ago. Isn't it time to move on just a bit?".
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Summary: Wasted Inheritance
Review: This is the memoir of two brothers who gamble away their inheritance at Gulf Coast casinos. Their descent into addiction is both unfortunate and pathetic. Their lives unraveld with the roll of a dice. Often repititious, sometimes sluggish, and certainly not the kind of flowing prose one would expect from two men now employed as college writing instructors.
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Summary: One of a kind
Review: This profoundly literate consideration of gambling is sad, funny, and thoughtful. It makes me want to read everything the brothers B. have written. It also makes me want to gamble, which I think they would completely understand.
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Summary: Harrowing and well written memoir
Review: This slim book by the Barthelme Brothers, recounting their descent into gambling hell, is both elegantly written and horrifying. After all, the Barthelmes are college professors and literary stars, and if their lives could veer out of control so suddenly and so badly, then so could yours and mine. The brothers end up throwing away all their money, including a $300,000 inheritance, at a riverboat casino during the year or so after their parents' deaths. Then -- as if the story couldn't get any more gruesome -- they are indicted on charges of cheating the casino! I've spent a lot of time in casinos myself, and can vouch for the accuracy of the Barthelmes' portrait of the casino scene: the mood of the place and the behavior of the various participants are captured perfectly. They are especially good at describing the feelings that run through a gambler while winning and losing. The only shortcoming of the book is the repetitious (and sometimes shallow) analysis of their behavior. Or maybe I've just read one too many books where it all goes back to Mommy and Daddy. I would like them to have stayed more focused on the story, and allow the reader to provide some of the analysis for himself. Also, if the brothers had waited a few months longer before publishing, they would have been able to provide the conclusion to this story, which, as it stands, is anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I would put this on a rather short shelf of great gambling literature, maybe not to far away from Dostoyevsky's "The Gambler."ÿ
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