A vicious, hilarious satire of bond traders and, by extension, the prevailing mindset of corporate America. This audacious first novel (by a former salesman for First Boston) echoes the biting tone of Catch-22. Rather than cogs in an absurd war machine, however, Bronson's protagonists are desk-bound hustlers trying to sell complicated and shady corporate bonds to the gullible or to those who know the government will bail them out when the bonds go belly-up. Caught in a cycle of making outrageous commissions for meeting outrageous quotas, the traders at Atlantic Pacific push themselves to physical and psychological ruin just to keep up. Sid Geeder loathes every new bond that management forces him to sell; because he hates the whole racket, he tries to bankrupt it by moving as many bonds as possible—which perpetually keeps him at the top of the heap as ``King of Mortgages.'' Geeder's position is threatened by Eggs Igino, a young hotshot who is such a good salesmen that he palms off breakfast futures on his fellow traders. But Iginio's genius leads him to the radical thought that maybe the bonds in which corporate America wallows are not ethical, a conclusion that creates a crisis for Sid and the entire firm. This couldn't come at a worse time, as Atlantic Pacific is trying to float bonds on the Dominican Republic in order to claim the nation as a corporation, then take it over and exploit its assets. Fast-paced, enlivened by a cast of odd yet believable characters, Bronson's debut is filled with wit and storytelling sleight of hand that will have readers alternating tears of laughter with tears of despair over the state of our financial institutions. Required reading for politicians and financiers, in hopes that it will make them think twice about the way they're mortgaging America's future. Required reading for everyone else, just because it's so much fun. (Author tour)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43541-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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