Wolf Hustle
A Black Woman on Wall Street
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the South Bronx projects to the boardroom—at only nineteen years old, Cin Fabré ran with the wolves of Wall Street.
Growing up, Cin Fabré didn’t know anything about the stock market. But she learned how to hustle from her immigrant parents, saving money so that one day she could escape her abusive father and poverty in the Bronx.
Through a tip from a friend, Cin pushed her way into brokerage firm VTR Capital—an offshoot of Stratton Oakmont, the company where the Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, had reigned. She was shocked to find an army of young workers, mostly Black and Brown, with no real prospects for promotion sitting at phones doing the drudge work of finding investment leads for white male brokers. But she felt the pull of profit and knew she would do whatever she had to do to be successful.
Pulling back the curtain on the inequities she and so many others faced, Wolf Hustle reveals how Cin worked grueling hours, ascending from cold caller to stockbroker, becoming the only Black woman to do so at her firm. She also discloses the excesses she took part in on 1990s Wall Street—the strip clubs, the Hamptons parties, the Gucci shopping sprees—while reveling in the thrill of making money.
From landing clients worth hundreds of millions to gaining, losing, then gaining back fortunes in seconds, Cin examines her years spent trading frantically and hustling successfully, grappling with what it takes to build a rich life, and, ultimately, beating Wall Street at its own game.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Cin Fabré was raised in the South Bronx projects while crack, homelessness, and AIDS were sweeping the city. Having first discovered her ability to make money selling stolen lunch tickets to her junior high classmates, 19-year-old Cin enters high finance at its lowest rung. As she climbs the ladder from cold caller to stockbroker during the 1990s financial boom, the sex, drugs, debauchery, and unabashed greed are as endemic as the casual racism and sexism tossed her way every day. With delicious detail and deft storytelling, she reveals a crazed atmosphere of frenetic wins and losses of unbelievable sums. But she also shows us how her Haitian-immigrant mother grounded her and ultimately helped her walk away into more meaningful pursuits. A supercharged rags-to-riches tale that explores family, love and friendship, Wolf Hustle is about more than just money.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former stockbroker Fabré debuts with a rollicking account of joining Wall Street as a 19-year-old Black woman in the 1990s, when brokers were "alarmingly white and male." The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Fabré grew up poor in the Bronx with an abusive father. She followed her hardworking mother's example and found her first hustle selling stolen school lunch tickets; by 18, she was a top salesperson at an optical franchise. Following a tip from a high school classmate, Fabré joined VTR Corporation, an offshoot of Stratton Oakmont (the firm where Jordan Belfort of Wolf of Wall Street infamy made his "debut killing"). Fabré was determined to succeed despite being surrounded by "shameless" men in an environment where drugs and racism were the norm, and became a licensed broker at 20 years old. Fabré recounts the highs and lows in vivid detail—as with descriptions of the unrelenting sexual harassment she faced—and the author's exuberance is contagious: "I tossed and turned in my little twin bed, too electrified with the knowledge that my life was about to arrow upward in ways that I couldn't even begin to fathom." The result is as memorable as it is inspiring.
Customer Reviews
It engrossed me from the start. Well written , tight, want another.
Cin Fabre, a writer with a future