neemzilla's review
5.0
What an unbelievably underrated novel from a writer everyone needs to be reading! Hot damn. That was a spicy meatball.
heregrim's review
3.0
The story of the loss of a man's soul to capitalism and the pursuit of money. How I ultimately will feel about this book I am still not completely sure. Still the story was very well written and I cared deeply for how each character's life would turn out. It was an interesting change of pace from what I have been reading.
wmhenrymorris's review
Killer idea; poor execution. It's a pity about that too. I pulled this off the library's new(ish) books shelf because of the title. I checked it out because it had quotes on the back from two authors whose work I had enjoyed. This book is worth reading as a failed experiment -- it's about a former second-rate biz journalist turned hedge fund analyst who is trying to get some intelligence regarding likely political changes in Bolivia that would affect their commodities market. But it's only worth reading to learn from. And really, what's so annoying about the novel is that it makes mistakes that only bad genre works make. Indeed, it's the equivalent of a spec-fic idea story.
The two main problems are:
1. Way too much info dumping and clumsy info dumping at that. Yes, it's a semi-complicated subject (except that the analyst doesn't understand a whole lot either so some of it is simply unnecessary -- trust readers to look stuff up or figure stuff out).
2. It literally uses a bomb under the table (okay, it's not under the table, but still) as a plot device. There's nothing inherently wrong with such a tactic, but it came across as ham-fisted here, as simply a way to cause certain changes in various characters in order to set up the ending.
The two main problems are:
1. Way too much info dumping and clumsy info dumping at that. Yes, it's a semi-complicated subject (except that the analyst doesn't understand a whole lot either so some of it is simply unnecessary -- trust readers to look stuff up or figure stuff out).
2. It literally uses a bomb under the table (okay, it's not under the table, but still) as a plot device. There's nothing inherently wrong with such a tactic, but it came across as ham-fisted here, as simply a way to cause certain changes in various characters in order to set up the ending.
lcline1981's review
5.0
"[...]Despite being one of the safest and most prosperous countries in human history, the United States was actually a very bizarre place. Elsewhere in the world, the unattainability of great fame and fortune was more readily accepted, and so life was less driven by grandiose fantasies. Elsewhere, people wouldn't tell their children that they could achieve anything, because, of course, they couldn't."
I saw Peter Mountford's book while browsing through NetGalley and was intrigued by the title. Then I basically let it sit on my I-pad for a while, and had to download it again after it expired. One day, I was leafing through my college alumni magazine, and saw in the alumni updates, that Peter Mountford went to college with me, at the same time I did. This would be incredibly unremarkable, except for the fact that I went to a college with only 850 people and I'm the type of person that gets excited when I know someone that does something. So, I bumped the book up the queue, and boy am I happy that I did.
Mountford's novel takes place mostly over a few days in the life of Gabriel Francisco de Boya, the novel's protagonist, and a freelance journalist turned "researcher" for a predatory hedge fund. He has been sent to Bolivia by his new boss to investigate any potential impact that societies' politics and economy might have on the US markets. Gabriel pretends to be a journalist as he tries to get close to the "higher ups," both foreign and local, to find the information that will essentially keep him his brand new job: a job that he supposes will earn him enough money for early retirement after only a few years. Gabriel, as the son of a single mother who is a liberal professor, struggles with his identity as henchman for the dark specter of capitalism, but also with his tenuous position as a member of the New York elite with whom he graduated from Brown.
Mountford studied international relations and his father worked for the IMF (according to an interview at the Millions), and his book is heavy on the academics. The book contains lengthy discussion of South American economic policy, Bolivian history, the behavior of markets, game theory, and other things that I've never personally been super interested in (except for game theory, which is pretty cool). And yet, these mini-lectures flow seamlessly with the other aspects of the novel: the suspense of Gabriel's precarious situation, the romance between Gabriel and a member of the newly elected president of Bolivia's staff, and the internal struggles that Gabriel faces concerning his own family, his own economic and moral quandary, and his relationship with the culture of Bolivia and his own mixed ethnicity. The internal ruminations on his race and on his desire are some of the most interesting and provocative in the book. For example:
"Growing up, he never considered the possibility that his identity might be a fixed thing, that it might not be something that could or should be adjusted for each situation. He had been born with multiple identities, after all: Californian, Chilean, Soviet, bourgeois, only child of a single mother, Latino, Caucasian. In these, he saw options."
or
"Not that Gabriel was, or ever, had been, a greedy person; but money, in general -- the plain and unassailable acts of acquiring and spending it -- had turned out to occupy a more important role in adulthood than he'd expected. The issue finally wasn't that he wanted to be rich, per se, but that he wanted to be done with so much wanting. It was a feedback loop, and the only way out was deeper in: he needed to have enough money to be done with the issue of money forever."
In the end, it is these internal struggles that lie at the heart of the book. Near the end of the book, a member of the hotel staff where Gabriel is staying tells him that he is a "sh***y person" and that he, Alejo, "[is] not like [Gabriel]." In response Gabriel "envied the purity of that perspective, the tender idea that the world was place where good people and bad people were locked in an epic struggle -- what a gorgeous notion!" It is ambiguity that in the end forces some of the most difficult decisions for Gabriel in the book, and the decisions that he makes remain shrouded in the same ambiguity. There is something to say here about human nature and our paradoxical relationship to certainty and desire. In desiring to stop desiring, we still desire. In our quest for certainty, we find ambiguity.
Mountford is masterful at interweaving all of the elements that make this book educational, thoughtful and also really readable. Not much about this book disappointed me as a reader (maybe a couple moments where the dialogue was a little too clever), and I hope to see more from this promising debut novelist. I would highly recommend this book; it's one of my favorites of the year so far.
**Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review
I saw Peter Mountford's book while browsing through NetGalley and was intrigued by the title. Then I basically let it sit on my I-pad for a while, and had to download it again after it expired. One day, I was leafing through my college alumni magazine, and saw in the alumni updates, that Peter Mountford went to college with me, at the same time I did. This would be incredibly unremarkable, except for the fact that I went to a college with only 850 people and I'm the type of person that gets excited when I know someone that does something. So, I bumped the book up the queue, and boy am I happy that I did.
Mountford's novel takes place mostly over a few days in the life of Gabriel Francisco de Boya, the novel's protagonist, and a freelance journalist turned "researcher" for a predatory hedge fund. He has been sent to Bolivia by his new boss to investigate any potential impact that societies' politics and economy might have on the US markets. Gabriel pretends to be a journalist as he tries to get close to the "higher ups," both foreign and local, to find the information that will essentially keep him his brand new job: a job that he supposes will earn him enough money for early retirement after only a few years. Gabriel, as the son of a single mother who is a liberal professor, struggles with his identity as henchman for the dark specter of capitalism, but also with his tenuous position as a member of the New York elite with whom he graduated from Brown.
Mountford studied international relations and his father worked for the IMF (according to an interview at the Millions), and his book is heavy on the academics. The book contains lengthy discussion of South American economic policy, Bolivian history, the behavior of markets, game theory, and other things that I've never personally been super interested in (except for game theory, which is pretty cool). And yet, these mini-lectures flow seamlessly with the other aspects of the novel: the suspense of Gabriel's precarious situation, the romance between Gabriel and a member of the newly elected president of Bolivia's staff, and the internal struggles that Gabriel faces concerning his own family, his own economic and moral quandary, and his relationship with the culture of Bolivia and his own mixed ethnicity. The internal ruminations on his race and on his desire are some of the most interesting and provocative in the book. For example:
"Growing up, he never considered the possibility that his identity might be a fixed thing, that it might not be something that could or should be adjusted for each situation. He had been born with multiple identities, after all: Californian, Chilean, Soviet, bourgeois, only child of a single mother, Latino, Caucasian. In these, he saw options."
or
"Not that Gabriel was, or ever, had been, a greedy person; but money, in general -- the plain and unassailable acts of acquiring and spending it -- had turned out to occupy a more important role in adulthood than he'd expected. The issue finally wasn't that he wanted to be rich, per se, but that he wanted to be done with so much wanting. It was a feedback loop, and the only way out was deeper in: he needed to have enough money to be done with the issue of money forever."
In the end, it is these internal struggles that lie at the heart of the book. Near the end of the book, a member of the hotel staff where Gabriel is staying tells him that he is a "sh***y person" and that he, Alejo, "[is] not like [Gabriel]." In response Gabriel "envied the purity of that perspective, the tender idea that the world was place where good people and bad people were locked in an epic struggle -- what a gorgeous notion!" It is ambiguity that in the end forces some of the most difficult decisions for Gabriel in the book, and the decisions that he makes remain shrouded in the same ambiguity. There is something to say here about human nature and our paradoxical relationship to certainty and desire. In desiring to stop desiring, we still desire. In our quest for certainty, we find ambiguity.
Mountford is masterful at interweaving all of the elements that make this book educational, thoughtful and also really readable. Not much about this book disappointed me as a reader (maybe a couple moments where the dialogue was a little too clever), and I hope to see more from this promising debut novelist. I would highly recommend this book; it's one of my favorites of the year so far.
**Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review
savaging's review
2.0
I remember reading bits of Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street and thinking this was smart and good and maybe even liberatory: we'll use anthropology to study the culture of the filthy rich in order to better understand what they're trying to do, and maybe fight back.
But fiction is a step beyond 'studying' -- it's about relating. And that's where I grow angry and weary. There are already so many books asking me to understand and relate to the guy who has the most power in the situation, while their sweat-shop labor force and housemaids and sex workers are invisible or low-dimension plot-props.
And so even though I think Peter Mountford has written a book to show what's wrong with hedge-fund-hyper-capitalism -- not just from a macroeconomic sense, but on the level of human relationships -- the book was hard for me. It's still asking me to constantly relate to the protagonist, one more mediocre and morally lax guy making it big off of exploiting others.
I could forgive the fact that
The one redemption of the book is that there is no redemption for the main character. He is punished by losing all the wonderful women in his life, and then he just keeps on living a shitty life. It's a better ending than if he somehow failed financially and semi-repented and trudged back into the lives of the mother and lover who already have enough on their hands.
But fiction is a step beyond 'studying' -- it's about relating. And that's where I grow angry and weary. There are already so many books asking me to understand and relate to the guy who has the most power in the situation, while their sweat-shop labor force and housemaids and sex workers are invisible or low-dimension plot-props.
And so even though I think Peter Mountford has written a book to show what's wrong with hedge-fund-hyper-capitalism -- not just from a macroeconomic sense, but on the level of human relationships -- the book was hard for me. It's still asking me to constantly relate to the protagonist, one more mediocre and morally lax guy making it big off of exploiting others.
I could forgive the fact that
Spoiler
he manages to make a shit-ton of money in Bolivia, because that's realistic. Unscrupulous capitalists make out like bandits -- sure, that happens. What I can't forgive is that Mountford writes that trope where a brilliant, beautiful woman, a single mother who's so politically astute that she works in Evo Morales' election campaign, falls in love with this horrible dude. The most painful scene of all is where she finds out that he works for a vampiric hedge fund and nearly walks away, but he says something awkward and supposedly 'flirtatious' and you watch while half of her brain cells blow straight away and she gets a little pouty smirk on her face and you can imagine her twirling her hair and smacking gum while she apparently flirts back and decides to fall in love with the ass-hat anyway, because apparently she's so desperate (read: Bolivian men are apparently all so horrible) that any lighter-skinned dude down on Spring Break getting wrecked at the bar is a catch for her. (Also: when does she ever sleep? Single mom working on the hemisphere's most important election, who comes around this guy's hotel for sex each night, then leaves at the crack of dawn. I ached with exhaustion for this woman.)The one redemption of the book is that there is no redemption for the main character. He is punished by losing all the wonderful women in his life, and then he just keeps on living a shitty life. It's a better ending than if he somehow failed financially and semi-repented and trudged back into the lives of the mother and lover who already have enough on their hands.
davidbunce's review
4.0
Good book, interesting plot and some perceptive comments in it. The writing was a bit uneven, though.
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