Buying In and Selling Out

Predictably, I haven't had much time to update this blog (got some big stuff going on this year), but the book I have most recently read, unlike books like Game of Thrones, did not get a lot of press during its release, at least not that I've seen. I couldn't even find the book at Barnes and Noble. I ordered the hardcover through Amazon.com (I may not rule out self-publishing through that platform, but I will only buy a Kindle if I literally have no choice) as it was apparently the only place I could find it. (Again, no choice) And it turned out to be a breezy, fascinating read about breaking into investment banking, involving sacrifices that most people would not be willing to make for prestige and the almighty dollar.

Buying In,  by Laura Hemphill, who apparently has a background in financial services, follows the "conversion" of first-year analyst Sophie Landgraf at the fictitious investment banking firm Sterling. When the story begins, Sophie is uncertain and full of self-doubt, snooping through her superiors' office to learn more about them and how they came to be a success. By the end of the story, even as she has lost her job and the big merger deal she was on the task force with out of her hands, she comes back for more, confident that now she knows how to play the game.

Though the story takes place during the period of collapse that rippled through Wall Street in 2007 and 2008, Sophie is tasked with a merger project that has absolutely nothing to do with what caused the Great Recession. Rather, she and her colleagues, and arguably Sterling itself, are casualties of this collapse. But this doesn't make the story any less compelling. The time period serves to add a poignant note to Sophie's Sterling saga, in which all the work she puts into the AlumiCorp-Roll-Rite merger deal is no longer given credit.

The story is Sophie's story, but we get into the heads of the other major players in the merger deal: Ethan Pearce, the man in charge; Vasu Mehta, the VP of the Industrial Group; and Jake Hutchinson, the CEO of AlumiCorp who takes a shine to Sophie, and a victim of much bad luck himself. Through these other characters we get an idea of how the financial services industry works and what it does to people. Ethan is self-serving and ruthless; Vasu is disillusioned and depressed; and Hutch has no time for phoniness and typical bankers' spin.

Interestingly, glimpses of Sophie's possible future can be seen in the lives of the other characters, even those whose heads we don't get into. There is Vasu, who has given so much of his life in years and in days to this company, starts to miss seeing his daughter grow up and visiting his ailing mother before she passes away, questioning why he was giving so much for this company that hardly appeared to value him at all. There is Nancy Cho, in whose office Sophie finds evidence of a pathetic love life and personal dissatisfaction, even as Cho puts on a front of satisfaction with her success. Then there are the people of Sophie's personal life, who express active disagreement with the choices Sophie is making and her dedication to a job that seems to yield no real satisfaction. And one of whom, her boyfriend Will, rejects her for this choice. One wonders if it will be long before this happens to the others.

Even with all the hard work she put into the project, Sophie was in the end just a number, a cog in the machine; yet it doesn't even put her off from further pursuing the financial services industry. This makes Sophie's character a fascinating if frustrating figure, especially in the face of making it in a male-dominated industry. We witness her conversion in full, as she internalizes Sterling superiors' words of wisdom and warning, and twists her mother's advice to fit her own motivations.

The only apparent reasons she broke into the industry in the first place were one, to live in New York and two, to make a lot of money. She's coming in with the "right" reasons, perhaps, but with the "wrong" attitude, such as the idea that she would be able to trust anyone she worked with, no matter how much time she spent with these people. And in the end, when she was thrown under the bus with all the rest, instead of looking into other, perhaps more self-fulfilling (rather than self-serving) career paths, she doubles down and negotiates her way to a job at Ethan's new firm.

As a person who knew enough about the investment banking industry to understand that it's unfettered capitalism at its worst, but certainly not that much about the ins and outs of the industry (like, wtf is a "model"?), I found this to be an enlightening read. But even by the end of this story, one nagging question still remains, one that Will early in the book asks Sophie herself: why is this important? What sort of satisfaction is she getting out of this; being barely able to get by on her own, when plenty of other people doing other jobs do the same thing? (perhaps not on such an expensive scale, but still.) I at first interpreted it as a phase Sophie was going through, in reaction against her parents' blase attitude about money...and the fact that, especially after her mother's death, her family appeared to have none. (Though now that I think about it, I wonder...does Sophie have no other living relatives other than her father? There is no mention of any. I suppose it's possible, but still...)



But it seems that Sophie has fully dedicated herself to this career track, even as thankless and pointless it appears to be. I still don't get what kind of satisfaction she seems to get from this work... or any of the employees. Even Ethan's primary motivation seems to be money. If this is what workers at Wall Street are really like, no wonder it's fucked up. The people who work in it are empty.

It's an interesting story, but not without its problems. Aside from the lack of motivation for being in the industry to begin with (though as a person whose primary motivation in life is not to make money, I guess I just can't relate to that reasoning), there is something that happens near the end of the book that is a big event, but basically forgotten in the last couple chapters. Out of nowhere, at the AlumiCorp company meeting at which everything comes out, there is a shooting.

Sophie's EMT training kicks into gear during the ensuing chaos, and she helps save Hutch's life. While the EMT bit, for which she is thanked innumerable times, would otherwise open a normal person up to pursuing the medical field instead, Sophie doesn't even consider it. (And she even says, unironically, later on that she doesn't believe one person can make a difference. Um, hello, you saved a guy's life. That doesn't make a difference? Sheesh.) That part adds an interesting dimension to Sophie, but the shooting incident in general screams amateur: "Oh, shit, we're almost to the end of the story. Something dramatic needs to happen. I know, let's put some unnecessary violence in there!" As if the subsequent layoffs (which apparently had nothing to do with the shooting as the shooting was quickly forgotten about) wasn't dramatic enough. If you had to have something violent happen, couldn't it be like a knife attack or a mob mentality taking over? A shooting sounds so cliche.

Overall, though, the novel is a disconcerting, realistic character study about breaking into the financial services industry in a time of crisis. This book is a decent, easy read, if you don't mind reading about characters whose motives are questionable at best. I give it three out of five stars. Not bad for a first novel.