The Vig

Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie

Peter Alson is having an early mid-life crisis. He's a 33-year-old Harvard Grad who has suddenly run out of prospects. Unable to finish that novel, he's back in New York nursing a broken heart, flat broke and out of work. So when he meets Michael, another Ivy Leaguer, who's making a killing as a bookie, he does what any enterprising guy would do: he enters a life of crime. The bookmaking operation he lands in is run by characters with names like Monkey and Steak Knife, and it is there, under their tutelage, that Peter's real education begins. If you were to marry Basketball Diaries to A Fan's Notes and throw in a dash of Damon Runyon, the result would be something like this--a book deserving of a place among the classics of down-and-out literature.