An uncompromising and engrossing tale of striving for success among greedy opportunists.
In Wolfe’s novel, friends and partners dive headfirst into the fierce corporate world to realize their dream of starting their own company.
When investment bank Kauffman Schwartz passes out innovator awards, wealth advisor Ted Sullivan goes home empty-handed. The plan had been for both Ted and his friend, investment banker Alec Young, to win in their respective divisions at the Arizona company; that would have been a great selling point for their future private equity firm, Sullivan Young, which has been their dream since they met six years earlier as KS interns. They’ve also been lovers for some time but have kept their romance a secret. (While Ted is openly gay, Alec hides his own sexuality from his conservative family, which includes an abusive father.) Complicating matters, Alec is also dating Emma Peterson, whom he’s using to get access to her “consulting titan” dad—this is another element of Ted and Alec’s long-term strategy to get investments for Sullivan Young. The two are fully aware that they may have to resort to cutthroat means, such as when handling Ted’s colleague, the “innovator” who wins and flaunts the award that Ted wants. Most of the people surrounding them are just as ruthlessly ambitious as they lie, deceive, and sometimes commit outright crimes. In many instances, when Ted and Alec feel as if everything is on track, something unexpected throws them off course. But when one particular event forces them to accelerate their plan, there’s no turning back; either their dream will become a reality or they’ll lose it all.
Wolfe effectively develops two strong leads. They come from drastically different backgrounds: Ted grew up on an Oklahoma farm and Alec’s father runs a successful business selling industrial machinery. At times, they seem avaricious; Sullivan Young focuses on green energy not to benefit the environment but because “there is money to be made in alternative energy.” But these two, who clearly love one another, are more devious than malicious, and many of the sneaky things they do are in response to someone else’s arguably worse offense. (That, however, may change as they move closer to their goal.) While Alec has suffered hardships in his past, the portrayal of Ted feels more intimate, exemplified by his first-person narration alternating with Alec’s third-person perspective. (Ted is haunted by a dark secret that gradually comes to light, and he struggles to overcome self-esteem issues.) Although many of the characters are unsavory, especially in the latter half, two are welcome exceptions: Ted’s ever-sympathetic cousin Dana and Alec’s warmhearted younger sister Alice. The author rounds out the narrative with memorable visual descriptions, as when he equates relief with “witnessing the emergency helicopter swoosh in after being stranded on a mountaintop, inundated by spiteful snakes and cold-blooded reptiles.” This all leads to a final act and an ending that readers won’t likely forget anytime soon.
An uncompromising and engrossing tale of striving for success among greedy opportunists.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2025
ISBN: 9798991301800
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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