The Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year longlist has been announced. For the first time in the six years of the award, there is a fiction title included among the nominees.
Union Atlantic: a novel by Adam Haslett
"The eagerly anticipated debut novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist and the National Book Award for YOU ARE NOT A STRANGER HERE is a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age and the conflicting identities it shaped. At the heart of UNION ATLANTIC lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte's grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. This irresistibly complex, imaginative and witty novel is sure to get good reviews and media coverage." ~ Publisher
"The year is 2002, and the villain at the heart of this story is Doug Fanning, a financier at an American bank who has built his career by cynically and sometimes criminally exploiting federal banking law. Fanning ends up leveraging himself into billions of dollars of debt, a situation that comes to threaten the viability of world financial markets (there are shades of Lehman Brothers here). Haslett handles this superbly, skillfully depicting the complexity and drama. He presents a fascinating portrait of high-level finance, where hubris and cavalier disregard for the law are kept just barely in check by a few sober, responsible civil servants working for the Federal Reserve. Verdict Recommended for readers of literary fiction" - Library JournalAlso consider:
Money to Burn: a novel of suspense, by James GrippandoTop Producer: a novel of dark money, greed and friendship, by Norb Vonnegut
The Invisible Heart: an economic romance, by Russell Roberts
Posts
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago I read a very good 2002 novel _Moral_Hazard_ by former '60s radical feminist Australian poet Kate Jennings. Dal's Killam has a copy (Spring Garden has a book she wrote about her dog). The main plot relives her experience as a Wall Street speechwriter.