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Mergers & Acquisitions | 
 enlarge | Author: Dana Vachon
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $3.95
You Save: $20.00 (84%)
New (11) Used (16) from $2.23
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 247090
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B000X1P4AW
Publication Date: April 5, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: new
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Amazon.com
A graduate of Duke University in 2002 and an analyst for J.P. Morgan for a few years after that, Dana Vachon is a writing wunderkind along the lines of Jay McInerney in Bright Lights, Big City and Bret Easton Ellis in Less Than Zero. However, the similarity ends with the theme of young guys on the razzle, because Vachon's protagonist, unlike his predecessors, observes and learns without falling into the honey pot. Tommy Quinn graduates from Georgetown and lands a job with J.S. Spenser, an investment banking firm. His major was Interdisciplinary Studies, a kind of Liberal Arts wastebasket, and he knows nothing about finance. In the brain-deadening Spenser training program he hooks up with Roger Thorne, a really crass human being, but one who knows all the moves. The genesis of the friendship sets the tone rather well: They are both wearing Gucci loafers and Rolex watches. The story begins at Roger's engagement party, with Tommy waiting for his erstwhile girlfriend Frances to arrive. Everyone thinks that she has been at a spa, but she has really been in an upscale Home for the Unsure, being ministered to by a freaky shrink. The story then moves backward through Tommy's ruminations about meeting Roger, "the John Audubon of preppy flesh," and about connecting with Terence Mathers, Spenser's guru of mergers and acquisitions. At the end of Mathers's first speech to the new Spenserites, Tommy says: "We had all partaken of the capitalist Kool-Aid and the applause was as much a tribute to the stupidity of young men and women after four years of elite education as it was to the success of Spenser's training program." Greed is definitely good in this atmosphere--the more the better--but Tommy is not really a full-fledged participant. After Tommy blows his first assignment, he and Roger are sent to Cabo San Lucas on a major deal. What happens there is life-threatening and hilariously over-the-top but perfectly plausible and moves Tommy to rethink his life path. Vachon has left his own fledgling financial career behind, and instead has written a first-rate first novel that is smart, funny, witty, and wise. --Valerie Ryan
Product Description
Unabridged CDs - 6 CDs, 8 hours
This stylish and hilarious novel about the lives and loves of well-to-do young Manhattanites beginning their first year on Wall Street is destined to become one of the year's most buzzed-about debuts.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Sequential Inconsistencies August 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Did anyone else notice that Tommy Quinn, the narrator, meets Roger Thorne when he begins working at J.S. Spencer? There's a whole scene where Thorne introduces himself to Quinn. Then we flashback to Quinn spending the summer in Rhode Island with Frances Sloan, and then they both move to New York. Then, in October, just before he begins at J.S. Spencer, Quinn and Sloan have dinner with Thorne at Cipriani's in SoHo? If Quinn meets Thorne when he first starts at J.S. Spencer, how are they having dinner together weeks before Quinn even starts at J.S. Spencer?
Can someone explain that to me? I must be missing something.
 I Give This Book A C+ August 1, 2008
This book was not what I was expecting. Very hum-drum, most of the text is spent reading the main character's boring perspective on work, life and his sometimes offensive sach-religious side notes. This book was offensive in other areas as well - all minorities in the novel are addicts of some sort, thieves, drug sellers or some sort of depressing character. There was no comedic outlet, no emotions get drawn, this book was simply two thumbs down.
 There's more going on here than you think. May 7, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sort of like a modern day Great Gatsby in the setting of American Psycho (minus the murder) with a slight Salinger influence on a couple characters. Follow the philosophic bread crumbs, and you may find something substantial.
 A good satire March 31, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I read this novel right after I finished Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons." I preferred Vachon's novel over Wolfe's by a huge margin. The writing was biting and funny, and I didn't find it patronizing. All in all, I very much enjoyed the book.
Sharp satire about privilege January 10, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's hard to feel for the rich, but Vachon came close. His story about a bumbling and disenchanted investment banker is a sharp satire about corporate America and privilege in America.
The main attraction here is the dialogue and characterization. Vachon captures the voice and mannerisms of the idle rich in New York. The reader is treated to a bird's eye view of the jaded lives of these people who want for nothing. But rather than showing them as totally evil, the reader feels sorry for the hollow lives these people lead.
I also enjoyed the description of training at an investment bank. The scenes involving Tommy and Makesh Makar are not to be missed. These companies may pay top dollar, but the toll on the young associates' lives is enormous. They have to sacrifice family, social life, and personal interest to make those huge bonuses. What do the people who claw their way to the top get? A chance to brag that "my wife hates me".
Vachon is talented and I am interested in seeing how his writing career develops.
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