Introducing American Gambler

I'm writing another book.

I started this newsletter in 2016. My first post was a letter I wrote on the last night in my Brooklyn apartment as I packed the last of our stuff before we moved our family down to Arkansas to write The Vapors. I kept writing them about once a month as we settled in to our lives down there and I tried to figure out how to write a book. I kept writing them until the book came out and then I took a little break, only writing a few times over the last few years. When I look back on some of those letters, I honestly think I was really in my bag.

Writing my first book was in many ways a torturous experience for me. I so desperately wanted it to be good. I think I spent the first year just reading tons of books. Not even just books I needed to read for research. I was reading these big celebrated works of literary nonfiction, trying to figure out how Good Writers wrote. I avoided writing my book because I was afraid whatever I wrote wouldn’t be good enough. I think I used this newsletter as an outlet to do some writing during this time when I wasn’t actually doing much writing of my actual book. And the result was I was able to free myself of my anxiety and insecurity and simply be myself, in conversation with this faceless audience, and say the things I was thinking about during that time. The letters were probably better than the actual book. I don’t know. They were good, though.

Now I’m writing another book. It’s tentatively called American Gambler. It’s about the evolution of the sports gambling business in America from the perspective of gamblers and bookmakers who built it in the shadows during prohibition. It’s in some ways a continuation of the work I was doing when I wrote this long feature for Rolling Stone earlier this year. In other ways it’s a continuation of the work I was doing on my podcast Gamblers. It’s also something totally different and new. I’m still figuring it out. I’m nervous and insecure about it all over again. That’s where you come in.

I’m resurrecting this newsletter so I can use it as a similar outlet it served nearly a decade ago. I’m hoping I can write to you about things I’m thinking about, things I’m learning, things I’m excited about. I’m hoping I can work out some ideas and themes here by writing to you. I’m also going to tell you about a lot of the books I’m reading.

To that end I’m going to do a podcast and release it here on Substack. It’s going to be a weekly conversation with me and friends of mine about books I’m reading. Some of them are research for American Gambler. Some are simply tangentially-related books that I have wanted to read or read years ago. Some are books my friends suggested to me.

In addition to the podcast I’m going to start an irl book club. If you sign up as a paid subscriber, you can be in it, too. We will vote on a book to read together and discuss it over zoom, or in person if we can make that work. We might even do a movie club and livestream some gambling related movies. We can figure it out as we go.

The point is, I’m getting the band back together. It’s been a while since I wrote a book, and I’m worried maybe I forgot how. One thing I remember is this thing helped, so I’m doing it again. I hope you’ll stick around for the ride. I could sure use your help.

I’m going to drop the first episode of the podcast next week. That gives you plenty of time to tell all your friends to subscribe.

Love,

David