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    Other People's Money
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    Other People's Money
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    Other People's Money
    Ebook336 pages4 hours

    Other People's Money

    By Justin Cartwright

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A darkly comic novel about a rich family on the edge of ruin, by the author of the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet and Richard & Judy selection The Promise of Happiness.

    'Other People's Money is wise, droll and beautiful fiction' David Mitchell
    'What a great read this is. Cartwright assembles a wonderful cast of characters in this masterpiece of a comic novel' Observer
    'A high-class piece of literary entertainment' Spectator

    The Trevelyan family is in grave trouble.

    Their private bank of Tubal & Co. is on the verge of collapsing. It's not the first time in its three-hundred-and-forty year history, but it may be the last.

    A sale is under way, and a number of important facts need to be kept hidden, not only from the public, but also from Julian Trevelyan-Tubal's deeply traditional father, Sir Harry, who is incapacitated in the family villa in Antibes.

    Great families, great fortunes and even greater secrets collide in this gripping, satirical and acutely observed story of our time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateMar 7, 2011
    ISBN9781408817643
    Unavailable
    Other People's Money
    Author

    Justin Cartwright

    Justin Cartwright's novels include the Booker-shortlisted In Every Face I Meet, the Whitbread Novel Award-winner Leading the Cheers, the acclaimed White Lightning, shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Novel Award, The Promise of Happiness, selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club and winner of the 2005 Hawthornden Prize, The Song Before It Is Sung, To Heaven By Water, Other People's Money, winner of the Spears Novel of the Year, Lion Heart and, most recently, the acclaimed Up Against the Night. Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa and lives in London. @justincartwrig1

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    Reviews for Other People's Money

    3.5/5

    80 ratings18 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I just couldn't get into this one - characters were undeveloped and plot was unengaging.
    • 5/5
      Very well done and fairly accurate. As it happened I worked for one of the old time British Merchant banks in the 80s and 90s and the author is spot on in terms of their knowledge of back office procedures and derivatives, which was essentially zero. However, the bank did punch well above its weight in terms of getting business from the great and the good in Europe. There were no banks that I knew of dating from as early as 1670 when this one was set up (mine dated from 1800 or so). The character of the Jewish banker who is going to buy this mess reminds me a bit of Sandy Weill, whose gigantic firm eventually bought mine. A great read and lots of fun.
    • 5/5
      Who knew high finance could be this funny? This book has been the best company these last couple of weeks, like carrying a witty friend around with me in my handbag. I have enjoyed all the novels I have read previously by Mr Cartwright but this is my favourite to date, full of astute observations, impressively drawn characters and humour which is often all the funnier for its deadpan delivery. On one end of the plot is a private bank in danger of going under if the family who own it don’t sneak in some major funds while the FSA are looking the other way. On the other end is a small Cornish fishing town where Artair MacCleod, a self-important playwright, is subsisting on pies after his stipend is cut off (ouch). This is the unlikely catalyst that sets the local paper on the trail of the London fat cats with a story that could send the whole house of cards tumbling down. It’s a story of big economics and small individual lives and the author balances them beautifully. There were bits that seemed as though the author, having created his characters, had decided to have a bit of fun with them and see what happened. In particular, the bit where society wives Kim and Fleur go out to organise a vegetable planting activity for unemployed youths and end up doing most of the work themselves while the youths smoke in the van. The plot would have stood without scenes like these, but I am so glad they were there. They added depth and pathos and balanced the economic stuff beautifully.
    • 4/5
      ‘OPM!' It's the trader's shout of glee that greets a deal gone bad. It's other people's money when they screw up, but they are quick to shout "mine!" when the deal looks good.
      It’s all about the money.
      The story is told from shifting viewpoints. Julian is the scion of one of England’s wealthiest and oldest private banking families; his father is the stroked out dying Harry, “…the tenth generation of Tubals, chairman of this and that, philanthropist, lover of the ballet, driven around all his life in a huge Bentley – ends up a sea creature, brain dead, his hands flexing and unflexing, mouth opening and closing as though he is sieving the water for minute particles of plankton.” Only Harry’s long suffering secretary Estelle can understand him now, and she is the one that can translate his garbled speech. ““He has dried up. The old phrases have escaped in staccato fashion from inside his head and the supply is diminishing. She will tidy them up before sending them.”

      She is also the only one who grieves for Harry. No one in his family cares for him, they think only of the impact of his death on the family business and finances and therefore how that will affect their own finances, status etc. His son Julian visits him in the hospital, and on leaving discusses his impending death with his right hand man Nigel. In four sentences he has done talking about him and then spends even more time talking about upcoming tennis game plans, and business-as-usual details. As if the death of his father is but one small minor detail in the larger canvas of dinner dates, tennis games, overseas travel, business deals, and oh by the way, funeral planning.

      Harry and his family are portrayed as almost hapless victims of their own selfishness, hypocrisy, and lack of insight. Incapable of a view outside themselves. The old man’s much-younger trophy wife, ex-actress Fleur, struggles to feel some emotion about his terminal state. “She reaches for his hand; her heart, her little gingham actress sentimental dishonest heart, is full.” She’s not completely lacking in insight though. “Maybe she’s become Emma Bovary. She needs dramatic models to form a view of herself.” “She thinks her new skin revitalising cream at £130 a jar is giving her face a healthy glow. Its effect is a little like going for a walk in a bracing wind. She’s losing all sense of irony.”

      Julian’s reckless and greedy dealings have mortally wounded his family’s bank, but so far the damage is hidden. He needs to get rid of the bank before his shonky business practices are discovered. He thinks that a successful sale will let him exit from his duplicitous hypocritical lifestyle. As if his slimy nature has been imposed upon him by the nature of his business. He doesn’t know he will never escape himself. Julian thinks the staff will be angry when they learn the bank will be sold. He is aware. But that’s it. He does not think beyond awareness. He does not think of the translation of the impact. Julian doesn’t seem to regard the staff as human. The doorman (doorperson?) Jade is “as happy as a Labrador”
      Julian is slowly assuming his father’s characteristics. “And he also seems to be assuming his father’s immense charm now as if the supply has been bequested to him and he’s come into the legacy early.” He doesn’t have the moral fibre to play a different role. “Julian thinks that in order to succeed in business you need, like his father and like Cy, to have limited imagination. If you were aware of life’s possibilities would you really choose a path of endless problems, disappointments and treachery? Would you choose to wear white Gucci loafers without irony?”
      The book is peppered with delicious lines like that.

      There are other interesting characters, peripheral cling-ons of the family and the journalists who stumble upon the potentially staggeringly scandalous bank fraud. The first two thirds of the book were great, bouncing around the different characters and heading toward an explosive climax. But then the author curiously seems to run out of steam, and the wrap up seems a bit contrived and hurried, and it falls flat, dragging the rest of the story down with it. I’d give it a 3.5, but for the delightful lines like, “The voice at the other end sounds a little fractured as though drink and disappointment have lodged permanently in the vocal cords.” , I’m rounding it up instead of down.
      (A fairly high Booker zipability index too! ( ;-) )
    • 5/5
      A beautifully written and utterly enthalling novel. Written from various characters' perspectives it tells of the struggles of Tubal and Co, a long-established private bank (perhaps loosely based upon Baring Brothers) to survive from a misguided venture into the world of hedge funds. As the novel opens the bank's chairman, Sir Harry Tubal-Trevelyan is living in the family's villa in Antibes, where he had moved after suffering a serious stroke. Now only his former personal Assistant, Estelle Katz (who has always been devoted to him) can understand what he attempts to say, and his family (inbcluding Fleur, his much younger trophy second wife) tend to stay away for as long as possible. However, his son, Julian, has to visit because he needs some important papers signed (including a Power of Attorney). Meanwhile, Fleur's first husband, a downtrodden thespian with grand designs, finds that the quarterely grant paid to him out of guilt by one of the bank's many private trusts, at the urging of Sir Harry, is late, and he happens to mention this fact to a local journalist who had called round to find out about the forthcoming children's pantomime.Cartwright catches the feeling of entitlement to wealth, and the reverence that the Bank seems able to draw from all of its employees in an entirely plausible and credible way. He also achieves what, in the current climate, might seem almost impossible, in that the reader empathises very closely woth Julian's plight as he struggles to save the bank.This book reminded me of John Lanchester's recent "Capital" and was, I believe, equally enjoyable and rewarding to read.
    • 5/5
      To be honest, when I started Other People's Money by Justin Cartwright, I wasn't sure that I was going to love it. The book came to me through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program, and when I got the notice I was getting it, I couldn't remember requesting it. It was a little slow going at first, but the story really draws you in. These aren't always very likable people, but you find yourself interested in them and wondering how things will turn out for them. Eventually, I found I did not want to put it down.Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal has been the head of Tubal & Co., a small privately-owned bank in England, for decades. A stroke has left him weakened, unable to write, unable to speak clearly. His son, Julian, has taken over the bank. His wife, Fleur, is absent -- she can't bear to see him this way. He is cared for by his longtime secretary, Estelle, who is secretly in love with him:"But when Harry's first wife, Eleanor, killed herself she had foolishly hoped that he might turn to her, Estelle. It was like something from Jane Austen: the plain governess who hopes her good qualities will win through with the master in the end. But he was arranging for Fleur, the twenty-five-year-old actress, to be cast in a play he was financing."The bank is in trouble. Julian was suckered in, like so many financiers, and now the bank is sunk deep in worthless mortgages and complex financial instruments that he barely understands. His father always said he wanted to run a bank, not a casino, but his son gambled and lost. Now Julian will need some fancy footwork -- and shady dealing -- to keep the bank solvent.The complication in all of this is playwright Artair MacLeod, Fleur's ex-husband. When they divorced, he was given a grant -- a quarterly stipend and a stern admonition to stay away from Fleur. That has worked well for MacLeod, until the money dries up. He's a character, one of my favorites, cobbling together a living out in the sticks from grants and speaking arrangements and children's theater productions of Thomas the Tank Engine. When the checks stop coming, MacLeod takes action.I loved the writing in this book -- it pulled me in and kept me reading. I loved his descriptions of people and places:"He couldn't wait to come back to Cornwall, where you could take a lungful of air which had travelled undisturbed from Nova Scotia, rather than one which had passed through the lungs of twenty wheezing cockneys on its way to yours."The descriptions of the villa at Antibes, with its turtle doves and umbrella pines, its hushed servants and the view of the Mediterranean -- vivid and enticing. (Well, maybe not the servants, but definitely the turtle doves.) It's a peek inside a family that is shackled in many ways by its ridiculous wealth, by all the unwritten rules of their status and its obligations. They operate on a different plane than the people around them; it both insulates and isolates them.You see the trainwreck coming, but there is no getting out of the way. I was particularly impressed with the wrap-up; I hate a book with a bad ending. Here, the storylines are wrapped up nicely, but not too tightly. Even in the train's path, people manage to salvage bits of their lives; some of them are even happy. All in all, a lovely, satisfying read.
    • 2/5
      In a simple and contemporary story regarding the inner workings of a banking family, the author manages to capture the reader quite well. The narration, however, is a bit too simple, not delving deep into the characters of the book. The book would probably work well as a basis for a movie script. It's too planar to be a book that stand out.
    • 4/5
      Definitely enjoyed reading this so-called banking book! It was more family drama than financial drama (although that was part of it). A spot on British satire that has you turning each page with gusto - I would highly recommend this book. The writing is solid and the characters are believable and the story just flows smoothly. Great read!
    • 4/5
      I won this book from the early reviewer's giveaway thinking it was a sort of fictionalized recounting of the recession that started in America and went global. While I was disappointed in that, I was gratifying to see that it was more of a human angle look at the situation. This novel is actually set in the Britain and deals with a family of bankers and how they weathered the financial storm for good or for bad. I enjoyed the read.
    • 5/5
      This novel tells the tale of a family, a banking family, caught in the web of a pending financial collapse. At heart this is a family drama rather than a deep look at the ills that helped cause the recent financial crisis. An incapacitated father, a son trying to stave off the collapse, a stepmother trying to rediscover her lost youth, a young journalist trying to make her mark, an aging editor desperate for one last story- all make this character-driven story a delight to read. The writing is magnificent, the characters finely drawn, and the situation realistic; this novel is a tuly excellent read. Highly recommended work of literary fiction.
    • 4/5
      If you are looking for a book that dives deeply into the recent financial crisis, you will not find it here. This book is more about the people behind the situation and their flaws. The story focuses on the Tubal family and the 300 year old bank that has been run by the family in London. Sir Harry, the current chairman, had a stroke and left the reins of the bank to his son Julian. Unfortunately, Julian made some decisions involving hedge funds that went under and now he is scrambling to fix the problem. After Julian cuts off funding to several charitable trusts, Harry's wife's ex-husband Artair talks to a journalist about it and she starts digging. Lots of sometimes interesting characters but I really didn't like any of them other than Melissa (the blogger) and Artair (the playwright). The book shows everyone's flaws and motivations fairly well. I thought the book was uneven with its pacing but was a pretty good read.
    • 4/5
      I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers, and I really enjoyed it! The author, in this novel, writes about an aristocratic, family-owned bank of Tubal & Co in London. Since Julian Trevelyan-Tubal took over as chairman after his father Harry's stroke, the 340-year-old bank is in trouble. After a series of ill-advised actions as chairman, Julian is putting the bank up for sale.The characters of the novel are all quirky and somewhat likeable, which is a bit odd, considering that this is a book about the banking crisis. I did however really love the portrayal of Artair MacCleod, who is a bit crazy and yet endearing.
    • 4/5
      I read this book as an Early Reviewer.It's an entertaining novel with a cast of interesting characters. I would have liked to have Sir Harry play a more active role in the story, but he's mentally "gone" in the book even before he dies . His elder son Simon has an even smaller role; we hear more about him via other characters than we do from his own telling. The story briefly dragged in a few spots although by halfway it was exciting and suspenseful. The ending was a bit too cute for me, however it would have been too conventional for the journalists to carry the day and therefore I can accept the way the author handled it. It turns out that in the final analysis the press is as bad as the banks are supposed to be when it comes to selfishness and arrogance.The final chapter is an epilogue. It has as its theme how there are many ways of telling the same story, which I interpret as saying there are many versions of the "truth". We read the story through the view of several characters, but could things have actually happened differently than the character knew?At 260 pages it's a relatively short book (and an easy read), which is a blessing these days when 400+ page tomes dominate the scene.
    • 4/5
      This book is about the Tubal family and it's rich history of bankers, the last of whom, Sir Harry Tubal, is on his death bed. His son Julian is tasked with keeping the bank alive, but due to recent misplaced judgement the bank finds itself in trouble.Justin Cartwright's style of writing does not leave much for the imagination, however, he does paint an interesting portrait of a family plagued by wealth. The narrative was easy to read, and I enjoyed how he intertwined the lives of everyday people trying to eek out a living with that of the great Tubal family. I found myself drawn to the least likely characters, but was disappointed with the movie-like way in which the ending was presented. Overall an enjoyable and quick read.
    • 3/5
      The book starts slow and it winds the reader up closer and closer to an foreseeing end, but the end turns out different than usual in books. The bad guys didn`t really pay for their crimes.It was nice to read, every chapter was about a different person. How really rich people think and act without being happy shows us that money is not always the answer to real problems and responsibilities, it often creates them.
    • 3/5
      This book was about an old English family who had run a bank for the past 350 yrs and comes into trouble as the son starts branching into risky investment banking and how they try to cover it up. As a personal analysis it seemed slow, and strange at points where it goes into detail of characters that seem minimal at best (Mr MacLeod). Maybe it would be more enjoyed by a person in a banking or finance background, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone without those traits.
    • 4/5
      Tubal and Co., a blue-blood British bank that has been around for almost 350 years, is in serious trouble. Like a lot of financial institutions in the years leading up to the sub-prime financial crisis, it lost sight of its main purpose and made a disastrous venture into hedge fund investing in an effort to increase profits. Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal, the patriarch of the family-owned firm, is dying and his son Julian has presided over the bank’s imminent collapse. In an effort to save the firm—and the family’s opulent lifestyle—he has made some questionable decisions, to say the least. This novel tells the story of Julian’s efforts and the far-reaching consequences they have.It is difficult to resist comparing this book with Sebastian Faulks’ recent novel “A Week in December,” which covers much of the same ground and in a very similar manner. Both exploit the well-worn “bankers are evil” theme that has been a literary tradition as far back as Charles Dickens. Faulks tells a more ambitious story and integrates the economic particulars of the financial crisis with a greater degree of sophistication. Conversely, Cartwright has written the more engaging tale; virtually all of his characters possess both redeeming and contemptuous traits that make them inherently more interesting and realistic.I probably was not the author’s perfect reader, inasmuch as I am a professor of Finance who has spent a lot of time researching and teaching about the recent near-collapse of the financial system. In that regard, I found his command of the economic details that form the background for his tale to be almost laughably naïve. In fact, it was difficult for me to get past his frequent, misplaced references to the “Gaussian bell curve model” as the root of the problem, as well as the vague references to the fact that the bankers involved didn’t care because they were playing with “other people’s money.”But this complaint, while not trivial, is not the most important concern. The fact is that this was an enjoyable book to read; Cartwright is a wonderful writer and this was a graceful and very appealing story with characters that are fully imagined and multi-dimensional. Although the author is fond of quoting Flann O’Brian’s maxim that every tale has many possible endings, the one he has chosen is just about perfect and also highly satisfying.
    • 3/5
      Humorous at times, very insightful, a worthwhile read. Examines the results of what happens when people of privilege face the same struggles as those whose money they manage.The title was a bit unoriginal, other books and movies already sharing it. But the book itself was quite original and surprisingly not as heavy handed as I had feared.