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    The Darlings: A Novel
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    The Darlings: A Novel
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    The Darlings: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Darlings: A Novel

    Written by Cristina Alger

    Narrated by Jonathan Fried

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences.

    Now that he's married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position.

    But Paul's luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie-will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?

    Cristina Alger's glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover-or cover up-the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society-a world seldom seen by outsiders-and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 16, 2012
    ISBN9781101538678
    Unavailable
    The Darlings: A Novel
    Author

    Cristina Alger

    Cristina Alger is a lifelong New Yorker and bestselling author of The Darlings, This Was Not the Plan, The Banker's Wife, and Girls Like Us. A graduate of Harvard College and NYU Law School, she worked as a financial analyst and a corporate attorney before becoming a writer. She lives in New York with her husband and children and is at work on her next novel.  

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    Reviews for The Darlings

    3.5/5

    89 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The Darlings sees high flying family the Darlings - who also happen to be the 'darlings' of the financial industry - go from riches to... well, not exactly rags but perhaps a few less luxury holidays and world class restaurants. Paul Ross seems a decent enough guy, who didn't try to game the financial system too much - unless you count turning a blind eye to the practices of others. Still, there's a big difference between seeing and doing and Paul has managed to make a new life for himself working for his wife's father.

      When a family suicide throws both the family and the company into turmoil, Paul knows he's not going to get away with see-no-evil, hear-no-evil this time around and has to make some very difficult decisions about family, loyalty and integrity.

      I did enjoy The Darlings. Paul certainly seemed the most down-to-earth of the characters, slightly out of his depth in a world of wealth and schmoozing. Many of the remaining characters seemed frustrating vacuous, which I'm sure was deliberate. It certainly meant it made more of an impact when they did feel something.

      My biggest issue with The Darlings was the ending. It felt laboured and drawn out. There was a twist, but I had seen it coming. That possibly added to my sense that it was just words filling space for a few of the later pages. Disappointingly, the drama and edginess built up throughout the novel, dribbled away as the hand was slightly overplayed.

      That said, I would still recommend this book. Entertaining and well-paced throughout the majority of the book, Alger weaves a good story of high society fallen low and the impact a culture of greed has. Alger is certainly one to watch.
    • 3/5
      I received an e-copy of Cristina Alger's The Darlings to read and review, courtesy of NetGalley.
      Once again eager to read about high society (but New York City, this time - not the Los Angeles set I love to read about), I dove into Alger's first novel. Described in reviews as a "fast-paced thriller," I wondered what I was getting into.

      Here is a family drama of a different caliber - a drama so tangled with financial backstabbing and secrets that I had trouble keeping track. Yes, I admit, I had a hard time following the plot line of The Darlings because I'm not well-versed on any big financial matters. Reading this did, however, get me on Google and researching terms and concepts, which I'd say means I was engaged by this book.

      I do wish that there were fewer characters to focus on, only because I felt as if I didn't really know any one character particularly well. Even Paul and Merrill, whose storyline constitutes a major part of the book, seemed sort of one-dimensional and elusive to me.

      I really loved the settings described, and the sensory details. I could really imagine myself in the beautiful summer homes and banquet halls of the elite set. Alger does a superb job of pulling the reader into the moment; I really appreciated this.
    • 4/5
      Fun enjoyable read. Easy to guess what happened.
    • 3/5
      Normally, I probably would not have picked this up, despite the lovely cover. When offered a review copy from Penguin, I figured why not, since I can be a bit narrow in my reading tastes these days (YA, YA, YA). Yet again, I am glad I did. The Darlings was a good read, even for one such as myself, who does not follow anything about the economy (more than my own bank account anyway).

      The entirety of the story, with the exception of the epilogue, takes place within just one week. I love that Alger set it up this way, because it really drove home how quickly a situation can devolve to a snafu. On Monday, everything was good, and in a matter of days two companies were pretty much destroyed (or likely to be so).

      Also, I want to give Alger props for managing to write sympathetic characters. I was definitely out to hate everyone in this book, because I can likely never (realistically) dream of having as much money as these guys would still have if the company bit it. I know life's not fair, but that does not mean I have to like it.

      Actually, pretty much every character in here was at least a little bit likable. Certainly, by the end, there were some folks I was not a huge fan of, but I didn't hate anyone entirely (except maybe for Jane, who didn't get much screen time). I couldn't hate Carter because of how much he cared for his family, and because he apparently resembles Cary Grant. My favorite characters were definitely Paul and Merrill, who seem least messed up by the world they're living in. I would also really like to find out what happened to Marina.

      The Darlings is a well-written story set in the economic landscape of post-9/11 New York City. Expect love, betrayal, and plot twists. Enjoy!
    • 3/5
      This is the story of financial royalty, of insanely wealthy families made up entirely of lawyers, investors, bankers, and their quasi-philanthropic spouses. When a family friend of the Darlings commits suicide, all sorts of dirty laundry is unearthed, turning everyone's world on its head. This was a fascinating introduction to a world completely foreign to me. I found Merrill and Paul quite sympathetic, and while the ending fell flat, the rest of it was a good time. My only real complaint was how much difficulty I had keeping track of all the characters. I could have used an extra sentence or two at the beginning of each chapter to remind me how this person relates to the other people. But it was a decent piece of fiction all the same.
    • 5/5
      My thoughts: Going into this novel, I knew one thing: Bravo bought it and is creating a scripted series around it. I expected a soapy and fun tale of a Ponzi scheme gone wrong. I got that, but I was surprised how good Alger's writing was and how funny and astute her descriptions and observations were:"He dressed as he did--Nantucket reds and bow ties and hunting jackets--without irony. He played lacrosse and drank his way through college, never doubting that a spot in the Morgan Stanley Investment Banking program would be available to him upon graduation (it was), and after that, a job at his wife's father's hedge fund."During the first fifty pages, I was gleefully laughing at Alger's descriptions of these upper crusters:"There's practically no floral budget," Ines declared when she had been named committee chairwoman. "We'll have to get creative. Opulence is out, anyway." She wasn't lamenting; Ines simply stated unpleasant facts with a sort of stoic fortitude."Alger gets this world: she's a lawyer, a former analyst, and her father is a Wall Street financier, yet this novel has a delightful outsider feel because the reader sees this world through the eyes of Paul. He lives in this world, and his marriage to Merrill is a delightfully authentic love story, but he's from North Carolina and observes things as an outsider in many ways. Interestingly, so does Merrill. Unlike her sister Lily, who was never the smart one, Merrill enjoys her demanding job and has the ability (and braveness) to question the assumptions of the life in which she was raised.As much as I laughed at the station of the rich in this novel, it was funny because Alger's humor is an intelligent and thoughtful one:"The Darlings of new York." Ines loved to reference "the article" in casual conversation, and she spoke of Duncan Sander as though they were old friends. In truth, it wasn't really an article, but more of a blurb attached to a glossy photograph of Ines and Lily, inexplicably attired in white cocktail dresses, frolicking on the front lawn with Bacall, the family Weimaraner."I'm not particularly drawn to financial thrillers, and while this novel qualifies, it is very much a character-based novel. There aren't easy answers or obvious bad people. Each character is well-crafted, complex, and driven by motivations that the reader can understand. Alger makes the complex world of financial accounting simple and fascinating. Favorite passage: "Manhattan was a Darwinian environment: only the strongest survived. The weak, the nice, the naive, the ones who smiled at passersby on the sidewalk, all got weeded out. They would come to New York for a few years after college, rent shoebox apartments in Hell's Kitchen or Murray Hill, work at a bank or wait tables or audition for bit parts in off-off-Broadway productions. They would meet other twenty-somethings over after-work drinks at soulless bars in midtown; get laid; get their hearts broken. They would feel themselves becoming impatient, jaded, cynical, rude anxious, neurotic. They would give up. They would opt out. They would scurry back to their hometowns or to the suburbs or secondary cities like Boston or D.C. or Atlanta, before they had had a chance to breed."The verdict: The Darlings is a delightful modern novel about life, love, loyalty and taking chances. Alger grounds her characters in the financial crisis and a Ponzi scheme, but ultimately this novel is a character-driven page-turner about how and why we make choices in difficult situations.Rating: 5 out of 5
    • 4/5
      “In his experience, it was usually the least assuming guy in the room who turned out to be the most interesting”Paul Ross lost his job with Wall Street’s favourite law firm when US banks started going under, and when his hedge fund founding father-in-law Carter Darling offered him a job, he was grateful for the opportunity. As the banking crisis deepens and litigators’ knives sharpen, Paul finds himself in a terrible situation – to save himself or his wife’s family?This impressive debut reminded me of a number of books I’ve read in the past year: Wendy Burden’s autobiography telling the life of the rich and famous, as well as Jennifer Egan’s (irritating) pastiche of interconnected lives, and to a lesser extent John Grisham’s tale of a lawyer who gets in far too deep. However, Alger does what I thought was impossible – she makes the banking crisis interesting and relevant to the average professional. The environment might be foreign to most of us, but the fear of firms going under, of emails being dredged, of lawyers stomping around is one that has simmered in most firms since 2008, andI didn’t enjoy the way in which the tale was told – from constantly varying perspectives, but apart from a few characters who could have been painlessly excised, the device worked well, keeping suspense up. A few times I felt the suspense was overdone; a chapter would end with some minor revelation but obviously anonymous pronouns, an affair was revealed but the identity of the woman involved was hidden. Nevertheless, this is an impressive debut and I’m sure Alger’s writing will lose some of its overeagerness in time.Alger conjures the opulent lives of New York’s richest without overdoing it – we have no doubt that these are unhappy people. Paul is overworked but happily married to a remarkably normal woman, annoyed with who he has become without really any way to change it. Carter is simultaneously hopeless and ebullient, lost in the web constructed by those he trusts.A riveting and impressive debut, with a bit of room for improvement.
    • 4/5
      I read this novel expecting it to be a take on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. To a certain extent it was, being about a family whose work and family lives were entangled in a financial scandal. Carter Darling employed both of his sons-in-laws, one of whom was just along for the ride and one, Paul, who just came aboard after losing his job as an attorney at the beginning of the recession.Not many of the wealthy characters are very likable in this book, except for Paul and Merrill. Although Carter came from a working-class background, he was now one of the 1%ers. He spoiled his wife and daughters, and lived a lifestyle to which most people cannot relate. While reading this book, I thought that there were too many tangential characters. They didn't seem to be moving the story along, I didn't know why they were there. By the end of the story, Alger had put all of the pieces of the puzzle together so cleverly I had to admire her skill. Every character leads to something important.I also enjoyed her descriptions of characters, like this one: "Theresa Frankel was a middle-aged woman who looked as though she resided permanently at the intersection of boredom and disinterest."One sentence and you knew immediately who Teresa was.The Darlings is a well-crafted story, and even if you don't like most of the characters, you'll want to see where this story is going. And Alger throws in a twist at the end that is a game-changer.
    • 4/5
      Usually when I get an audio, I like to listen to the first 20-30 minutes (sort of like leafing through a book) to get a feel for the cadence, the characters, and a gist of the plot. At the 2 1/2 hour point, I had to force myself to turn off the audio so I could at least have a human conversation at the dinner table! I was hooked from the beginning. I spent the next day doing a lot of driving, swimming, and just plain lazy listening to this one. I literally could not stop!Although I thought at first this might be a re-hash of the same kind of story I'd read last year by Stephanie Madoff Mack recounting her tribulations being Bernie Madoff's daughter-in-law, this did not turn out to be anything like that. What Alger has done is to give us a psychological, edge of the seat "who's going to screw whom" mystery! The setting is pure New York upper-crust, high society glitz. It has it all--the designer clothes, expensive jewels, flashy cars, doormen, weekend homes in the Hamptons, weekday co-ops in town, poorly paid minions, overworked secretaries, society matrons: a good glimpse into the world of the 1%. The characters will be loved by some, detested by many others. The story is familiar to anyone who has read a newspaper or listened to a talk show in the last decade. But the marvelous evil plot twists have the reader clinging to every page, waiting to see how (or whether) the principal character is able to emerge a free man after he becomes unwittingly enmeshed in the inevitable back-stabbing, shark infested waters of Wall Street hedge fund managers and their uber expensive lawyers.Alger blind-sides us with a fantastic and unexpected ending (she had me pumping my fist and yelling YES!) and then ties up the story with an epilogue to satisfy our "But what about?s" It is an altogether satisfying read that is especially well-suited to the audio format, and the sonorous tones of Jonathan Fried's narration.
    • 3/5
      New this month from Viking, Cristina Alger's debut novel The Darlings has been marketed as one of the first novels about the financial crisis of Fall 2008. The Darlings are among the wealthier families in New York - a penthouse in the city, a home in East Long Island - and patriarch Carter is head of an affluent hedge fund that, as it turns out, has been operating with peak performance over the last two decades thanks to a Ponzi scheme run by a family friend. And when that friend takes a dive into the Hudson right before Thanksgiving, Carter and his family are tossed into whirlwind crisis that can only end in tears and betrayal.Ms. Alger is a lawyer and former analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co., someone with a keen and definitive knowledge of the financial world. That knowledge lends itself well to the plot, but less so to the characters. Carter's daughter Merrill and her husband Paul are arguably the main characters and are among the most sympathetic of those involved, but (as with any very rich, very influential family) the Darlings touch many lives, and all of them (it seems) are in this book.Carter's lawyer Sol explains that, when Carter is indicted, the media will make people hate him by showing photos of their homes, their daughters on horses, etc. They've lived privileged lives and, with the fallout from the discovery of the fraud, they will appear more selfish than they truly are. Alger's novel does the same disservice to the characters - there's a little too much backstory in some places (gratuitous explanations of rich people who came from nothing and now have everything), and some of the minor characters come across as inconsistent and duplicitous when they're actually not, but at under 350 pages the time frame of the novel (one very quick week) is decidedly well-managed.
    • 4/5
      The Darlings, set in post 9/11 NYC, is a riveting, thoroughly researched novel about a financial crisis involving billions of dollars invested in what was assumed to be a credible institution by many trusting investors. If it weren't for the economic chaos created by Bernie Madoff, this would be less-than-believable fiction. Its focus is on those intimately involved in a scandal that shakes the foundation of many lives. At the heart of the novel are the wealthy, privileged Darlings, Carter and Ines, and their two adult, married daughters, who have an enviable lifestyle until it disappears overnight. There are peripheral characters whose lives are also broken as a result of scandal and betrayal. Called into question is the matter of ethics, both personal and professional, that provides a haunting counterpoint as the drama unfolds. I found this novel to be intriguing and very well written.
    • 3/5
      When you’re not part of the 1%, it’s hard to sympathize with them. But the author created main characters with heart. The story was fast paced and kept me interested. Despite not knowing much of the financial world, it was conveyed in a way that I could follow.
    • 4/5
      Written by a former analyst at Goldman Sachs, this novel portrays the wealthy society and the financial shenanigans that brought about the crisis on Wall St. She does this very well, as I have to say that I really did not like any of these characters at all, except for Paul. He finds himself part of the family and working for his father in law and must figure out where his loyalties lie. A twist at the end, well at least I didn't expect it. The games the rich play, the pressures and the stress, all for the sake of money. This is based on an ARC provided by the publisher.