The Fall of Princes

June 1, 2015
The unapologetic excesses of America’s hedonistic 1980s are embodied in Goolrick’s (Heading Out to Wonderful) egotistical protagonist, and this new novel is an addictive slice of semiautobiographical fiction. Goolrick’s unnamed hero is a young, wealthy, arrogant Wall Street commodities trader with a merry band of young millionaire coconspirators in the BSD (big swinging dick) club. His profligate lifestyle, bloated by luxury, drugs, transcontinental parties, and casual sex (“before the plague,” that is), began while he expertly climbed the ranks at his firm where, at 31, he was soon able to “trade shit for silk.” The novel’s jumpy time line artfully and gleefully juxtaposes his lush lifestyle with the immediate adjustment to his shocking job termination, divorce, and defeated return to being “almost a nonperson” in mainstream society. The ascending years spent lavishing in the riches afforded by his livelihood on Wall Street are beautifully peppered with morally authoritative meditations on the specter of AIDS in the 80s (“suddenly, love is fatal”), the interchangeable cultures of excess and dearth, and his new life as a bookstore clerk. As if exorcising the demons of his past, Goolrick vividly plumbs the depths of fortune and regret. The result is a compulsively readable examination of the highs and lows of life in the big city. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

November 1, 2015

Best-selling author Goolrick (Heading Out to Wonderful) does a neat trick in his new novel: he creates an irresistible read narrated by a despicable individual you would never want to meet. Set in high-flying 1980s Manhattan ("money, that year, was the most tangible avatar of the zeitgeist"), it features a character who wants it all and treats people like playthings, easily discarded; the opening scene, involving a card game as job interview and the narrator's arrogant triumph, chillingly reveals the mind-set here. But what goes up must spiral down, and we see our antihero scrambling; it's no surprise when the name Ozymandias graces the text. VERDICT Deeply readable and unsettling.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2015
An exiled Wall Street trader offers an unapologetic accounting of the excesses of the early 1980s. Goolrick (Heading Out to Wonderful, 2012, etc.) is a superb writer, as evidenced by his sublime debut novel, A Reliable Wife (2009), and his brutal memoir, The End of the World as We Know It (2007). He's referred to his latest as both novel and autobiography; it carries both the artistic qualities of the former and the emotional truth of the latter, even if it is set during a well-worn moment in the American zeitgeist. The unnamed narrator is a former Wall Street hotshot who looks back on his glory days as a "Big Swinging Dick," swimming among the other sharks. The novel presents its chapters as vignettes that depict his unmaking-think of it as the Icarus myth of a cocky young kid as filtered through the voice of a tired older man. "I say this without pride or apology," he says. "It is a statement of irrefutable fact. I could charm a hatchling out of its egg. I could sell ice cream to Eskimos. Dead Eskimos." It shares some aspects of similar stories, ranging from the tragicomic beats of Jay McInerney or Bret Easton Ellis to the repulsive behaviors in films like Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1989) and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)-mountains of cocaine, thousand-dollar prostitutes, and bro-enabled debauchery are all on full display. Fortunately, Goolrick's measured pace and insightful revelations save it from becoming a mockery. For starters, Goolrick worked in advertising, not finance, and so there's no complex financial wizardry to detract from the core story. More importantly, it doesn't carry the obscene celebratory tone of some of its analogues. Goolrick is focused on the idea of loss and redemption and shows the small ways by which we become human again. As our man burns through his money and reputation, loses his place on Mount Olympus, and eventually becomes a bookseller, the novel does its best to show the price of flying too high. A cautionary tale about what happens when the party's over.

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June 1, 2015
In a compelling, wholly seductive narrative voice, Rooney tells of his high-flying days as a Wall Street trader during the 1980s; however, his fall is as precipitous as his rise, and he recounts his days of great wealth and even greater excess with both wistfulness and regret, never failing to mention the people he hurt along the way. It was a decade that saw the young and glamorous working hard and partying well into the night, fueled by endless lines of cocaine and daunting amounts of booze. Rooney and his fellow hotshots see themselves as privileged and deserving of everything the city has to offer, including high-end prostitutes and million-dollar lofts. But when Rooney makes a fateful mistake with a rich client, his days as a trader are over, and he is forever blackballed from the profession. His sudden landing reactivates his conscience, and he feels compelled to offer mea culpas for his debauchery. Goolrick's stellar prose infuses this redemption story with a good deal of depth and despair, making it read like the literary version of The Wolf of Wall Street.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)