You Will Make Money in Your Sleep: The Story of Dana Giacchetto, Financial Adviser to the Stars

...I was enthralled with Giacchetto. "You must meet him, he is inspired," I told a successful friend. "Oh, if you have any money you should invest it with him." Now this friend says to me, "Emily, I'm glad I didn't listen to you." Because of my entanglement with Dana, this is not an objective book about his life; and although he initially cooperated with it, it could hardly be called an authorized biography. He agreed to a rule of no editorial control — that the story I wrote would be the one I remembered and uncovered. Yet as the story unfolded for me, he became furious that he couldn't control it. We parted ways before I finished the manuscript. Throughout the process of writing about him I have grappled with my memory of him in the nineties, when I thought he was some kind of rescuer.

"Reporter White (Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut) was a longtime friend of Dana Giacchetto, a smooth-talking, A-list financial adviser who counted David Copperfield, Michael Ovitz, Tobey Maguire and Phish among his clients, and famously partied with Leonardo DiCaprio at Moomba and other high-profile clubs. When Giacchetto was arrested for money laundering and other financial improprieties in April 2000, White stuck by him, visiting him in prison and collaborating with him on his memoir, until she discovered that she, too, had been taken in by the 'Scammer to the Stars.' Of the $100K that White and her husband entrusted to Giachetto, $80K disappeared for good. White paints a vivid picture of Giaccheto's family, but readers looking for salacious celebrity dish will be disappointed. White spends too much time exploring his childhood in depressed Medford, Mass., instead of the story of his rise and sensational fall. Her alternately sympathetic and angry tones are distracting, and she's too much of a character in her own story. Finally, her uncertainty about whether Giacchetto's a con man or a misunderstood, charismatic fame-chaser who got in over his head keeps her story balanced but unsatisfying. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

...I was enthralled with Giacchetto. You must meet him, he is inspired, I told a successful friend. Oh, if you have any money you should invest it with him. Now this friend says to me, Emily, I'm glad I didn't listen to you.

I knew Dana before the time of the celebrities and I watched as the celebrities transformed his life. I met him in 1992 when he came to Seattle to begin work on what would be one of his most famous deals: the selling of Nirvana's first record label, Sub Pop. My husband was Sub Pop's general manager. He owned a 1 percent share of the company, and he made enough money from the deal to buy a house and give Dana $100,000 to put into a safe bond. Rich ended up losing $80,000 of the investment, but that was later, after the nineties boom had imploded and Dana had become just another felon.

Because of my entanglement with Dana, this is not an objective book about his life; and although he initially cooperated with it, it could hardly be called an authorized biography. He agreed to a rule of no editorial control — that the story I wrote would be the one I remembered and uncovered. Yet as the story unfolded for me, he became furious that he couldn't control it. We parted ways before I finished the manuscript. Throughout the process of writing about him I have grappled with my memory of him in the nineties, when I thought he was some kind of rescuer.