Other People's Money
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In a world still uneasy after the financial turmoil of 2008, Justin
Cartwright puts a human face on the dishonesties and misdeeds of the
bankers who imperiled us. Tubal and Co. is a small, privately owned bank
in England. As the company's longtime leader, Sir Harry Tubal, slips
into senility, his son Julian takes over the reins-and not all is well.
The company's hedge fund now owns innumerable toxic assets, and Julian
fears what will happen when their real value is discovered.
Artair
Macleod, an actor manager whose ex-wife, Fleur, was all but stolen by
Sir Harry, discovers that his company's monthly grant has not been paid
by Tubal. Getting no answers from Julian, he goes to the local press,
and an eager young reporter begins asking questions. Bit by bit, the
reporter discovers that the grant money is in fact a payoff from Fleur,
written off by the bank as a charitable donation, and a scandal breaks.
Julian's temperament and judgment prove a bad fit for the economic
forces of the era, and the family business plunges into chaos as he
tries to hide the losses and massage the balance sheet.A story both cautionary and uncomfortably familiar, Other People's Money is
not a polemic but a tale of morality and hubris, with the Tubal family
ultimately left searching only for closure. Bold, humane, urbane, full
of rich characters, and effortlessly convincing, this is a novel that
reminds us who we are and how we got ourselves here.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this mundane take on life in the era of global financial crisis, Cartwright (In Every Face I Meet) focuses on British bankers behaving somewhat badly, and the repercussions that ripple through one prominent family, and society more broadly. Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal is the aged patriarch of Tubal and Co., a privately held bank synonymous with respectability and exclusivity. In poor health, Harry is ensconced in Provence while his son, Julian, handles the business, where, thanks to some unwise dallying with complex financial instruments, things are looking bleak. As Julian engages in backroom maneuvers to shore up the bank, theater producer and playwright Artair MacCleod stops receiving his quarterly stipend from the Tubal family trust that he was granted during his long-ago divorce from Harry's current wife. This failure of payment proves significant when it becomes known to an ambitious young journalist who takes an interest in MacCleod's situation. Cartwright is intent on compassionately portraying regular folks as well as those who operate the levers of power the bankers are indeed his most convincing characters but the overall chilly, deflated feeling does few favors for a book that intends to humanize grand contemporary ills.
