Saturday, July 23, 2011

The Recessionistas-Alexandra Lebenthal

The Recessionistas
Alexandra Lebenthal
Grand Central, Aug 15 2011, $14.99
ISBN: 9780446563680

As the recession has gotten worse, cutthroat competition amidst the Wall St. sharks and their spouses has turned even uglier. Flying Point Capital hedge fund owner John Cutter diligently keeping his profit margin high with aggressive investment in the subprime mortgage market while beginning to conceal his money from his estranged Greenwich wife Mimi the art collector.

Blake Somerset watches his fortune shrink by over $50 million while the banker’s Fashionista wife Grigsby refuses to lose her position as the top dog setting elitist of the Upper East Side. He holds on by assisting his Harvard classmate John hide funds that his “client’s brilliant assistant Renee Parker would not be able to trace let alone his “client’s” Connecticut art collecting trophy wife.

Although the key characters are stereotypes, the insightful lucid descriptions of the confusing financial vernacular is superb and helps make the business of Wall St. the prime protagonist of this ironic tale. Many readers will cheer the climax but recent events affirm the opposite with few falling like Madoff. Still overall the Recessionistas is a wonderful satire from an insider who cleverly lampoons her roots.

Harriet Klausner

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