Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this novel takes us to Wall Street in the early 20th century, on the eve of the Great Depression.
Benjamin Rask is a cold and lonely man, who builds his place in Manhattan’s financial circles while staying away from the social life of New York’s elite. After having amassed a phenomenal fortune, he felt the need, in the middle of his life, to share his life with someone and married a young woman who felt the same need for solitude.
Together, they invent a new daily life around their philanthropic activities, until the tide turns for their relationship as for Rask’s business. In the second part of the book, a certain Andrew Bevel follows in the footsteps of his father and the two generations who preceded them, and recounts his life as a financier “in a city dominated by financiers.” It is at this point in the story that we begin to suspect the author’s desire to confuse us.
And we take part in the game of this skillful magician, if only to discover the crux of the matter. Despite the aridity of certain passages (which nevertheless serve to reflect the austere character of the central characters), the plot is convincing enough to take us until the third part, where the mystery is finally clarified. Like a fictional roman à clef, this foray into the game of stock market transactions and the world of the excessively rich – where absolutely everything can be bought – turns out to be very interesting for those who like what is going on around the Grosse Apple and Wall Street.
