All I Could Get: A Novel - Hardcover

Lasser, Scott

 
9780375413254: All I Could Get: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375413251 ISBN 13: 9780375413254
Verlag: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

Barry Schwartz has everything: two healthy young children, a strong marriage, a house in the Colorado mountains, and a job that lets him ski a hundred days in a good year. But at thirty, still paying off student loans and struggling to make the rent, he begins to think it isn’t enough.

All I Could Get is the story of the ultimately harrowing journey into the heart of New York’s financial world that Barry and his family take on the way to discovering what exactly is “enough.” With the voice of a born storyteller and an intimate knowledge of the business of high finance, Lasser gives us stunning scenes that capture the wry banter of the morning commute, the hardball diction of Wall Street, and the rhythms of a good marriage as it hits the skids. A novel of fierce momentum, studded with instances of piercing tenderness and clarity, All I Could Get is an indelible portrait of a family driven to a reckoning, of a man poised on the brink of terrible power and unspeakable loss, of the crushing effects of envy, and of the devastating force of the American dream.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Scott Lasser received an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He is the author of <i>Battle Creek</i>, and was formerly a government-bond trader at Lehman Brothers. He lives in Old Snowmass, Colorado, with his wife and two children.

Aus dem Klappentext

Barry Schwartz has everything: two healthy young children, a strong marriage, a house in the Colorado mountains, and a job that lets him ski a hundred days in a good year. But at thirty, still paying off student loans and struggling to make the rent, he begins to think it isn’t enough.<br><br><i>All I Could Get</i> is the story of the ultimately harrowing journey into the heart of New York’s financial world that Barry and his family take on the way to discovering what exactly is “enough.” With the voice of a born storyteller and an intimate knowledge of the business of high finance, Lasser gives us stunning scenes that capture the wry banter of the morning commute, the hardball diction of Wall Street, and the rhythms of a good marriage as it hits the skids. A novel of fierce momentum, studded with instances of piercing tenderness and clarity, <i>All I Could Get</i> is an indelible portrait of a family driven to a reckoning, of a man poised on the brink of terrible power and unspeakable loss, of the crushing effects of envy, and of the devastating force of the American dream.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Prologue

We lived then in a prefabricated unit that sat on a sandy, sage-covered plateau just north of the Roaring Fork River. Our home, like the twenty-one others around it, was made to look like a log cabin; to me it brought to mind the Lincoln Logs I played with as a kid. One day I was out walking with my son along the old railroad bed that ran between our subdivision and the river canyon. My son was just four, bouncing along in a pair of new Stride Rite shoes that had set me back forty-three bucks. We were terribly short of money. I looked up at the ski mountain of Snowmass, where, in mid-June, the snow was finally fading from the upper slopes, and then back to my boy, who was pulling at a sage bush. A private plane rose from the valley. I covered my ears with my hands and watched the jet tear at the sky. I'd had enough. I don't know why I picked that moment to decide it, but I knew I'd had enough of putting off purchases of basic foodstuffs like peanut butter and bread, had enough of driving a pickup truck with duct-taped fenders and a flaky transmission, had enough of fearing the heat and electric bills, to say nothing of the rent. I grabbed my son and went to tell my wife, who, in her own way, had had enough, too.

And so that's how it all got started. I was thirty years old, and I wanted to make some money.

1. Bid Without

I last saw weekday-morning light in October. Now, as I crest the hill on Route 172, I spot a bluish-gray strip of sky along the horizon. Dawn, or at least the hint of it. It looks to be a fabulous day. For one thing, the air this morning has that special charge you sometimes get in the spring. I felt it when I left my house, my face tingling and raw from having just shaved, the breeze soft and warm on my cheeks. There was the smell of moist earth and the first few bars of morning birdsong. I took a moment to stand perfectly still in my driveway, where I took a deep breath and listened; it's such acts that can give ballast to the day. Right now I am driving with my nose tilted in canine fashion to my cracked and rattling window.

I'm going to miss this air at work, though I'm looking forward to getting in. I'm on a bit of a roll. I've just finished my most profitable month and am trading with confidence. Last week a mutual fund did a billion-and-a-half-dollar trade with me, and I actually made some money on it. The other guys on the desk are starting to take note. Also, it's my birthday, thirty-five. Old still to be the low man on the trading floor, but it looks as if my luck may be changing. I turn left into the parking lot by the interstate, where every day I meet my carpool mates. I coax the Escort's gearshift into reverse, ease the car into a parking space, and check my watch. It's 5:59.

Seconds later, Chip McCarty backs in his BMW 540 next to me and gives me a little salute, like the navy aviator he once was. This background gives him unquestioned stature on the trading floor. He flew submarine-attack planes, not fighters, but Wall Street doesn't make much of a distinction, and now Mac is the best-known U.S. Treasury five-year-note trader on the Street.

We get out of our cars, and I breathe in the smell of cut grass, mixed with a tinge of exhaust wafting over from the interstate.

Mac and I nod at each other, but don't speak. He stretches, reaching his long arms above his head, as might a football referee signaling a score. It's just light enough that I notice the hair on the back of his head, how it stops its descent to his collar in a neat, razor-cut horizontal line. He got a haircut over the weekend, though it's not easy to tell. He keeps his hair so short that I have to notice the difference around the edges.

"Good weekend?" Mac asks.

A Little League game, burgers grilled on the deck, my wife, Rachel, and I curled up on the couch Saturday night, watching a movie, a Sunday-morning bagel run with my daughter.

"Are they ever bad?" I say.

"Never," he admits. He looks at his watch. "Where the hell is Dino? Can't that guy ever be on time?"

Just then Dino Corsetti's Infinity comes squealing into the lot. He swings the car around and lunges it to a stop in front of us. The car does a little jig on its shocks. I climb into the back seat; Mac takes the copilot spot. Bloomberg Radio is maybe thirty seconds into its 6:00 a.m. financial-markets update.

"See," Mac says, nodding toward the radio for proof, "you're late."

"Eat shit," Dino replies. He pulls out of the lot, and runs a red light to turn onto the I-684 entrance ramp. He reaches around his tie, which hangs from the rearview mirror, and engages the radar detector. It responds with its normal routine of beeps and squeaks, and we're off.

The news on the radio is dire. Stock markets worldwide are crumbling. Panic selling has rolled through Tokyo, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, and Singapore. There are rice riots in Bangkok, strikes in Seoul, bankruptcies everywhere. Two market-related suicides have been reported this morning in London. It's midday there, and most stock traders are cowering under their desks as if awaiting a nuclear blast. The trading day is about to begin in New York, and fear is oozing out of the radio reports and, I'm sure, e-mail updates from Tokyo and London. In an age of instant communication, panic is never localized. U.S. Treasury bonds, with their excellent credit and guaranteed (albeit low) return, are on fire. Chip McCarty and I both trade U.S. Treasury bonds. The radio announces that the thirty-year bond, a benchmark issue, is up in price by twenty-seven ticks. This is a big move.

"Hee-hee!!" says Mac, who's gone home long. He raps out a drum roll of glee on the dashboard, taking special satisfaction in making money by betting against the Japanese, whom he hates for reasons that have never been clear to me.

I can tell from the vibrations that Dino has reached cruising speed: somewhere between eighty-five and ninety-five miles per hour. Outside the window, the day is fading in. We slip under a stone bridge--we are on the Hutchinson Parkway now--and past the glow of a Mobil service area.

"How come you never stop for coffee?" Mac asks Dino.

"How come you never come prepared?" Dino sips at the mug he always brings from home.

"There's no place to buy coffee in Bedford," Mac complains.

"Make it yourself."

"Yeah, right." Mac turns to the back seat. "What do you think, Barry? Wouldn't a little coffee for the ride be nice?"

The radar detector screeches, and Dino stabs at the brakes. Right now I feel I would donate a spare digit for a cup of coffee, but I'm tired of this routine. Dino and Mac have several running arguments, and this one is the oldest; they've been bickering over coffee for three years.

"You guys work it out," I say. It's my standard line.

"I knew he'd say that," Dino says.

I lean back on the leather seat. I have things on my mind. Today I will take the offensive with Court Harvey, the head of my trading desk. This year, I want to get paid. A lot. This means I have to work on Court Harvey now. As traders, we never know what we will earn. Instead, we're given a token "salary," and then a year-end "bonus," or "number," which is a trader's real pay. The bonus criteria are subjective. Trading profitably is important, but no more so than one's image as a vital member of the desk. The main thing we do is lobby management for pay. It's a sad but true state of affairs that we have to start this lobbying in April. If April isn't too late. I've seen Mac in with Court Harvey twice in the last month. Perhaps they were talking about something other than Mac's number, but I...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Alfred a Knopf Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375413251
ISBN 13 
9780375413254
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
243
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780375727870: All I Could Get: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0375727876 ISBN 13:  9780375727870
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2003
Softcover