Double Down is one of the best firsthand accounts ever written about organized gambling. Like Goodman Brown, taking a walk with a hooded stranger into the darkness of the New England woods, the Barthelme brothers suddenly find themselves inside the maw of the monster.

Fredrick Barthelme (born October 10, 1943) is an American novelist and short story writer, well known as one of the seminal writers of minimalist fiction. Alongside his personal publishing history, his position as Director of The Center For Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi^[1] and Editor of the nationally prominent literary journal Mississippi Review (1977 - 2010) have placed him at the forefront of the contemporary American literary scene. He is currently the editor of New World Writing^[2] (formerly Blip Magazine)^[3]

• 4Bibliography

Early life[edit]

Barthelme was born in Houston, Texas.^[3] His father, Donald Barthelme, Sr., was a well-known and highly active Modernist architect in the city. The atmosphere of intellectual and aesthetic vigor encouraged by their father, pervasive in Barthelme family life, is described in Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, a memoir co-written by Frederick and his brother, Steven. His other brothers, Donald and Peter, emerged from the creative household to become authors as well. Frederick pursued his widely-ranging talents in multiple creative fields, including painting and music: he was a founding member of the avant-garde psychedelic rock band The Red Krayola. He eventually chose to focus on fiction writing: receiving his M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with John Barth.

Style[edit]

Barthelme's works are known for their focus on the landscape of the New South. Along with his reputation as a minimalist (similar to Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison), Barthelme's work has also been described by terms such as 'dirty realism' and 'Kmart realism'.^[4] He published his first short story in The New Yorker,^[5] and has claimed that a rotisseriechicken helped him understand that he needed to write about ordinary people.^[6] He has moved away from the postmodern stylings of his older brother, Donald Barthelme, though his brother's influence can be seen in his earliest works, Rangoon and War and War.

Barthelme was thirty-three-year editor of Mississippi Review,^[7] known for recognizing and publishing once new talents such as Larry Brown, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Amy Hempel early in their careers. Issues of Mississippi Review have been guest-edited by authors Rick Moody and Mary Robison among others.

Awards[edit]

• 1976-77 Eliot Coleman Award for prose from Johns Hopkins University for his short story, 'Storyteller.'
• 1979, 1980 National Endowment for the Arts grant
• 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction nomination for Elroy Nights.
• 2010 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters fiction award for Waveland

Bibliography[edit]

Story Collections[edit]

• Rangoon 1970.
• Moon Deluxe Simon & Schuster, 1983.
• Chroma Simon & Schuster, 1987.
• The Law of Averages: New & Selected Stories Counterpoint, 2000.
• 'trip' (text) photographs by Susan Lipper Powerhouse Books, 1998.

Novels (fiction)[edit]

• War and War 1971.
• Second Marriage New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.
• Tracer New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
• Two Against One New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.
• Natural Selection New York: Viking, 1989.
• The Brothers New York: Viking, 1993.
• Painted Desert New York: Viking, 1995.
• Bob the Gambler Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997.
• Elroy Nights Cambridge: Counterpoint, 2003.
• Waveland New York: Doubleday, 2009.
• There Must Be Some Mistake New York: Little Brown, 2014.

Memoirs (non-fiction)[edit]

• (With Steven Barthelme) Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Screenplays[edit]

• Second Marriage 1985.
• Tracer 1986.

References[edit]

1. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2010-03-10.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
2. ^http://newworldwriting.net/forgiveness/
3. ^ ^ab'Fredrick Barthelme'. The Mississippi Writers Page. The University of Mississippi, English Department. November 11, 2008. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
4. ^http://www.southernscribe.com/zine/authors/Barthelme_Frederick.htm
5. ^http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/frederick_barthelme/search?contributorName=frederick%20barthelme
6. ^http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/missouri_review/v027/27.2oates.html
7. ^http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Barthelmes-Departure-Leave/25610/

Further reading[edit]

• Brinkmeyer, Robert H. 'Suburban Culture, Imaginative Wonder: The Fiction of Frederick Barthelme.' Studies in the Literary Imagination 27 (Fall 1994): 105-1.
• Hughes, John C. The Novels and Short Stories of Frederick Barthelme: A Literary Critical Analysis. Lewiston: Mellen: 2005. ISBN0773461779
• Peters, Timothy. 'The Eighties Pastoral: Frederick Barthelme's Moon Deluxe Ten Years On.' Studies in Short Fiction 31.2 (Spring 1994): 175-95.

External links[edit]

• 1English
  • 1.2Verb

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Double Down Reflections On Gambling And Loss Program

Verb[edit]

(third-person singular simple presentdoubles down, present participledoubling down, simple past and past participledoubled down)

1. (gambling) To double one's wager. In particular, it is the name of a specific doubling bet allowed in blackjack.
   • 1999, Frederick Barthelme and Steven Barthelme, Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss, →ISBN, page 66:

     He'd bet three thousand and double down to six thousand, all of it hanging on the turn of the next card.

2. (by extension, often followed by the preposition on) To double or significantly increase a risk, investment, or other commitment.
   • 2007, Peter Beinart, 'The Kosovo Conundrum,' Time, 12 April:

     Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all want to get out of Iraq. They all want to double down in Afghanistan.

   • 2017 September 19, Gwilym Mumford, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle review – spy sequel reaches new heights of skyscraping silliness”, in the Guardian‎^[1]:

     While 007 has been on extended annual leave as a result of Daniel Craig’s cold feet, Taron Egerton’s thoroughly less urbane secret agent Eggsy Unwin has managed to thoroughly outdo him, with Matthew Vaughn’s sequel to his hit 2015 comedy-thriller doubling down on the qualities that marked its predecessor out from the superspy pack: more star-filled, more gleefully grisly, and reaching new heights of skyscraping silliness.

   • 2019 July 24, David Austin Walsh, “Flirting With Fascism”, in Jewish Currents‎^[2]:

     [Tucker] Carlson, in his keynote, doubled down on Trump’s recent attacks on Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar.

   • 2019 October 12, Jason Koebler, “Blizzard Doubles Down, Says It Will Continue to Silence Players on 'Official Channels'”, in Vice‎^[3]:

     [Entertainment Company] Blizzard Doubles Down, Says It Will Continue to Silence Players on 'Official Channels'.

Usage notes[edit]

The alternative inflected forms double downing and double downed are sometimes seen.

Double Down Reflections On Gambling And Loss Of Death

Quotations[edit]

For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:double down.

Double Down Reflections On Gambling And Loss Lyrics

Translations[edit]

Double Down Reflections On Gambling And Loss 2017