A âsearing memoir of loss and redemptionâ (People) that âexposes the side of The Wolf of Wall Street we didnât get to seeâ (Metro), After Perfect is a cautionary tale about one familyâs destruction in the wake of the Wall Street implosion.
Selected as one of the yearâs âFifteen Books You Need to Readâ by the Village Voice, Christina McDowellâs unflinching memoir is âa tale of the American Dream upended.â Growing up in an affluent Washington, DC, suburb, Christina and her sisters were surrounded by the elite: summering on Nantucket Island, speeding down Capitol Hillâs rich back roads, flying in their fatherâs private plane. Their life of luxury was brutally stripped away after the FBI arrested Tom Prousalis on fraud charges. When he took a plea deal as he faced the notorious Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfortâs testifying against him, the cars, homes, jewelry, clothes, and friends that defined the family disappeared before their eyes, including the one thing they could never get back: each other.
Christina writes with candid clarity about the dark years that followed and the devastation her fatherâs crimes wrought upon her family: the debt accumulated under her identity; her motherâs breakdown; her own spiral into addiction and promiscuity; and the delusion that enveloped them all. She shines a remarkable, uncomfortable light on a familyâs disintegration and takes a searing look at a controversial financial time and also at herself, a child whose ânormalâ belonged only to the one percent. A rare, insiderâs perspective on the collateral damage of a fall from grace, After Perfect is a poignant reflection on the astounding pace at which a life can change and how blind we can be to the ugly truth.