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Synopsis
In this Pygmalion tale of a novelist turned bond trader, Martha McPhee brings to life the greed and riotous wealth of New York during the heady days of the second gilded age.
India Palmer, living the cash-strapped existence of the writer, is visiting wealthy friends in Maine when a yellow biplane swoops down from the clear blue sky to bring a stranger into her life who will change everything. The stranger is Win Johns, a swaggering and intellectually bored trader of mortgage-backed securities. Charmed by India's intelligence, humor, and inquisitive nature, and aware of her near-desperate financial situation, Win poses a proposition: "Give me eighteen months and I'll make you a world-class bond trader." Shedding her artist's life with surprising ease, India embarks on a raucous ride to the top of the income chain, leveraging herself...
Publishers Weekly
A novelist facing midlist obscurity trades her copy of Microsoft Word for a Bloomberg terminal in McPhee's uninspired latest. India Palmer, 38, married, mother of two, and a critical but not commercial success as a writer, has built her life around art but is distracted by the Wall Street wealth of her best friends, Emma and Will, even as they long for her life. When a hedge fund trader—appropriately named Win—arrives with a Faustian bargain, betting he can transform India into a money-making machine, she takes the bait. The transformation is not as unbelievable as it is boring; market money may be exciting, but the making of it is about as lively as dental school. McPhee (L'America) offers a few intriguing finance tidbits, but mostly this is a middling tweak of a familiar story, though a fitting one for these times of shattered money dreams. (June)