In 2020, Alexander was a 29-year-old American writer with no money, living in a cramped Paris flat-share. With the future of everything seeming deeply uncertain, he decided to do what so many millennials were doing: ''YOLO'' his meagre savings into highly risky options trading. What followed was an eighteen month long psychological roller coaster. In a stunning display of unbelievable folly, Alexander had turned a small loan into $1.2 million and lost it all - but in its place, had gained a good story to tell. In a book that''s part-memoir, part-exploration of late capitalism, Hurst grapples with the vital questions of our age: how do you build a life when you''re blocked from the means to do so? Are we still bound by class and social status, or has the internet freed us? Is it worth becoming a monstrous narcissist in the pursuit of wealth?

Autorentext
Alexander Hurst is a writer whose long-form essays and reportage have appeared in the Guardian, Hazlitt, The New Republic, Eater, The Caravan, and elsewhere. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he has an undergraduate degree from Amherst College, Massachusetts, an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and an MA in Public Policy from Sciences Po, where he has also taught a first-year seminar on contemporary democracy in the United States. He writes a wide-ranging, regular column about French and European issues for the Guardian. He lives in Paris.