American Sucker

Im not all that up on the New York literary scene or the political correctness of women leaving men, but this strikes me as serious self-indulgence on the part of the wife. Schines books dont exactly suggest that conventional marriages can endure. In "The Love Letter," the divorced heroine takes up with a younger man (the letter turns out to be from one woman character to another). I havent read "She Is Me," but isnt it about a wife leaving her husband for a woman? See a pattern?

How does it go? "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Denby should have seen it coming, but who knows what he could have done about it.

Sure, Denby wallows in self-interest and indulgence in this book; but his family is destroyed. Family values meant something to him. Too bad he couldnt figure out how to write about them in "American Sucker." It would have been a lot more interesting to me than the stock market stuff.

I liked the fresh perspective of the in-person stories of Denbys meetings with Henry Blodgett and Sam Waksal. Merrill Lynch gave Blodgett a grotesque bonus after this fiasco; what does that say about Merrill? Self-love helps us all deceive ourselves I guess.

To me, the title expresses Denbys disgust and mystification about the recent past. Well, to those of us "smart" folks who, with Denby, were swept along with the stock market tide, "misery loves company." Youll love "American Sucker." DD