cover image American Sucker

American Sucker

David Denby. HighBridge Audio, $32.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56511-849-2

When New Yorker film critic Denby begins his memoir, the year is 1999 and his marriage had just ended. ""Having lost the greatest thing in my life,"" he says, ""I feared I would lose another and another."" So Denby sets out to ride the NASDAQ bull. What follows is his account of making and losing over $900,000 as the NASDAQ crests and collapses. All the while, Denby carries on a running meditation on greed. He recalls a time when investment was ""part of pop culture"" and even the guys selling papers had stock tips to pass on. Boutsikaris, the Obie-winning actor who reads the memoir, offers a tour de force performance. He understands irony, managing, in the space of a few moments, to sound self-indulgent, self-deprecating, stunningly sincere and painfully intellectual. At times, the author gets caught up in discussing the history of other booms and the nature of capitalism, but the energy level of Boutsikaris's reading never flags. He captures the author's sense of wonder and betrayal and Denby's final realization that, despite maladies aplenty, the economy remains resilient, as does he.