Well, it worked yesterday. I closed up my computer and read Calico Joe. So I thought I'd give it another go today. I've had The Ghosts of Manhattan by Douglas Brunt sitting around for a couple of months; it was sent to me by someone wanting me to review it.
I hated didn't much care for it.
A bright young man, without really knowing why, takes a job at Bear Stearns. By the time he is 35 years old, he is well into the life of alcohol abuse, cocaine, strippers, hookers, infidelity, and rulers: whose is longer, metaphorically speaking. That's what most of the book is about. It was shallow, sensationalist, and trite, despite the pangs of conscience felt by the hero, Nick Farmer. At rare instances, it has some fakey cloak-and-dagger stuff about the run-up to the Bear Stearns melt-down in 2007, and that is what I had hoped to enjoy, but even that was disappointingly weak.
I don't know what it was, but from the beginning there was something about the writing style that made it hard for me to concentrate on The Ghosts. As I read it, I was reminded of my dislike of The Bonfire of the Vanities, which I gave away after having read only the first third or so. At least Bonfire was well-written.
Furthermore, maybe it's just me, but I don't really enjoy reading about people spiraling to destruction, as was the case in Bonfire. At least in Ghosts, there appears to be some hope for the man.
If you really want read about life on Wall Street, and if you want what you read to be gripping and well-written, go back to Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, which I still highly recommend. I'd give The Ghosts of Manhattan a miss.
I have no idea what the readers who gave it more than one star saw in this novel. I pretty much agreed with the Amazon reviews (which I read AFTER I read the book) that gave it one or two stars.