by JULIET WATERS

David Denby had what many people might consider an ideal life. Staff writer and film critic for the New Yorker, he is also author of Great Books, a respected and much-loved memoir about his year of rereading the core curriculum of Columbia's English Lit program. He also owned, with his novelist wife, a seven-room, $1.4-million (U.S.), apartment in the West End. That is until 1999, when she left him for another woman.

For a while he consoled himself with the addiction one might expect from a respected film critic: Internet porn. "Asian Frenzy, Latino Studs? Oh, why not? At least take a look." Sadly, however, he turned to a more dangerous obsession: stock TV. Desperate to hold on to the apartment he loved, he decided he could take the reasonably healthy portfolio he'd built, invest in tech stocks and make $1-million to buy the apartment. Or at least that's the story he's telling here.

It's a crazy plan, but not as crazy as it seems, since Denby had more resources available to him than just a healthy nest egg. As a staff writer for the New Yorker, he had cultural capital, which he exploited to the fullest. He formed casual friendships with two of the leading villains in the post 9-11 stock crisis, both of which started as interviews: Merrill Lynch whiz kid Henry Blodget, whose cynical manipulation of client trust ended up costing his company $100-million (U.S.) in fines, and Sam Waksal, CEO of ImClone, the stock that may land Martha Stewart in jail (which is where you'll currently find Waksal). Fortunately, and obviously, Denby didn't get too close to them, since he not only failed to make a million - he also lost a million.

Money is a challenging subject for any writer. As Denby points out, "most people are far more forthcoming about sex." But this isn't necessarily because it's taboo. To those not bitten by the moneymaking bug, it can be an excruciatingly tedious subject. Proof that it can turn even the finest minds dull can be found in chapters 3–9, which have the whiff of stale, unpleasant news, definitely not distant enough for nostalgia. Keep reading, however, and American Sucker develops into an increasingly complex and fascinating memoir of the end of an era. All that core curriculum reading pays off as Denby paints portraits of Blodget and Waksal with the nuance and ambiguity one might find in Edith Wharton or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The character, unfortunately, who lacks nuance and ambiguity is Denby himself. With only slight digressions into discussions of envy, Denby paints himself as a devastated naïf, driven by the expected motivations - grief, fear of ageing, mortality, and loss of security. By his own admission, he is scrupulously careful not to become "one of those embittered men encountered at work, at a party - men a little too articulate about ‘women.'" But in saying so little about the reasonable bitterness he might have had towards his wife, he leaves a lot open to interpretation.

All the time that he's losing his own money, he is of course also losing hers. Not the capital she gave him to invest during their marriage, but any profits she would have made as a result of the thoughtful, intelligent, investment strategy he'd stuck to until she left him - a fact he mentions, but never elaborates on. He invested decades of love with her, and ended up with nothing to show for it. So isn't it only fair that she should have nothing to show for the decades of money she invested with him? Lurking beneath this tale of extravagant times and extravagant crimes may be another quite interesting tale of extravagant passive aggression. But these are the fascinating little stories that are the very reason some writers reserve the real truth for fiction.

American Sucker by David Denby, Little, Brown, HC, 320pp, $24.95