Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss

"So each night began. One of us would pick up the other and we'd make the

drive into the Mississippi night, headed for a place where everything was different."

Within a year and a half, Frederick and Steven Barthelme had lost both of their

parents, less than a decade after their brother Donald had died. Their exacting father

had been a prominent modernist architect in Houston; their mother, the architect of this

family of seven, which she "invented, shaped, guided, and protected."

"We were on our own in a remarkable new way," the Barthelmes write, "and we were not

ready." What followed was a several-year escapade during which the two brothers lost

close to a quarter of a million dollars in the garish gambling boats off the Mississippi

coast. They played to enter that land of possibility that is addiction. Then, in a

bizarre twist, the brothers were charged with violating state gambling laws,

fingerprinted, and thrown into the surreal world of grand juries, prison visits, and

felony prosecution. Double Down is the sometimes wryly told, often heartbreaking

story of how they got into this predicament and the role played by the loss of their

parents. It is also a reflection on the pull and power of illusions, the way they work on

us when we are not careful.