All I Could Get - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Scott Lasser (Paperback)

About the Book

Seamlessly blending high-power financial world wheeling and dealing with insightful homegrown drama, "All I Could Get" pits ambition against happiness, lust against love, work against family.

Book Synopsis

Barry Schwartz had everything: two healthy young children, a strong marriage, a house in the Colorado mountains, and a job that let him ski a hundred days in a good year. But at thirty, debt-ridden and maybe just a little bit bored, he decided it wasn't enough, and headed for Wall Street to make the big bucks.

With the voice of a born storyteller and an intimate knowledge of the business of high finance, Lasser gives us stunning scenes that capture the life Barry finds waiting for him on the fast track: the wry banter of the morning commute, the hardball diction of Wall Street, and the social pressures to get ahead at any cost. Only once Barry has lost the last vestiges of his former self does he start to wonder, what's it all for? All I Could Get pits ambition against happiness, lust against love, and work against family to make shrewd observations about human nature and the costs of the American dream.

Review Quotes

"Fast and furious. . . . The macho beat of Wall Street pumps through this novel." -Boston Globe

"Engaging. . . . Nail[s] down the wry, wisecracking tone of the business world . . . in lively, almost reportorially vivid detail." -The New York Times

"[An] acutely observed modern morality tale . . . [that] gradually draws us deeper into the whirlpool of hubris, flailing temperaments, humiliations, high stakes, inflated egos, betrayals and high pressures of the financial world." --The Miami Herald

"Lasser . . . has an insider's grasp of life on the trading desk. If you have ever wondered whether you could hack it on Wall Street, you should read this book." -Philadelphia Inquirer

"Intriguing. . . . Moves at the brisk pace of life on the trading floor, evoking the banter, stress and even the smells of an intensely masculine milieu." --Newsday

"Utterly engrossing, harrowing, and, yes, fun. Scott Lasser's All I Could Get is all you could want." -Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

"Smartly written. . . . This compelling merger of seductive Wall Street wealth and domestic turbulence is a great investment." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Takes you onto the floor and into the cubicles of the large trading houses and puts you behind the screen. . . . Along the way, [Lasser] shows us the high price of envy and ambition and the cost of one man's dream to get to the top." -Roanoke Times

"Lasser does a great job of showing his readers the fast paced world of high finance" -Rocky Mountain News

About the Author

Scott Lasser received an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He was formerly a government bond trader at Lehman Brothers. He lives in Aspen, Colorado.