by Daniel Akst
First published 1990
The protagonist starts as a teenager cleaning rugs for a living. He sees an opportunity to escape his mundane existence and sets his sights on Wall Street's glittering promises. He creates fake companies to attract investors and secure loans he never intends to repay. The money flows in, but legitimate business profits cannot sustain his growing ambitions. He turns to laundering drug money to fuel his financial empire. His fraudulent schemes grow more elaborate as he climbs higher in the world of high finance. Success brings wealth and recognition, but the foundation remains rotten. The central tension lies between his desire for legitimacy and his dependence on criminal methods. At its emotional core, this is a story about the price of ambition when moral boundaries dissolve in pursuit of the American dream.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, crime, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: crime-and-punishment, moral-dilemma, rags-to-riches
280 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: drug-use