The Contrarians: A Novel [Hardcover]

Gary Sernovitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 13, 2002

A bold and insightful novel detailing a young Wall Street analyst's fall from grace

Chris Kelch is at the top of his game, one of Freshler Feld's rising stars. At only twenty-eight, he's one of the highest-rated equity research analysts in his sector; last year, he pulled down nearly half a million dollars. His personal life is also on a roll: his girlfriend, the comely Kersten Henry, couldn't be more supportive. Kelch's small-town, single-parent, Midwestern roots seem far behind.

But when a thinly veiled profile of Kelch runs in a prominent magazine, things start to go downhill. Not only does the piece reveal company secrets and cast Freshler Feld in a bad light, it also makes him feel like a dupe: the author tricked him into giving an interview. And it reveals far more about Kelch's conflicted feelings about his past and his job than he has admitted even to himself.

Then a stock Kelch handpicked falters, and things go from bad to worse as he is forced to examine just about every assumption, decision, and mistake he's ever made.

With suspense and style, The Contrarians not only creates one of the most memorable "money men" in recent American fiction, it also examines, as no novel has done before, the rise-and the seeds of the fall-of late-nineties Wall Street.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Plutocratic Wall Street insiders are predictably bashed for their cupidity and self-righteousness in Sernovitz's disappointing sophomore effort. After making his auspicious debut last year with the incisive, idiosyncratic and deeply personalized Great American Plain, Sernovitz tackles the evils of corporate America. His writing is fluid and self-assured, but the flood of reportorial detail only points up the over-familiarity of the subject matter. Like Sernovitz himself, market analyst Chris Kelch is a Midwesterner starting a new life in New York. Kelch is an odd mix of understatement and braggadocio. A financial wunderkind at Freshler Feld, an elite Wall Street investment bank, he alternates between unreflective taciturnity (in his personal life) and voluble self-confidence (at the office). Things begin to go sour for the hyper-successful Kelch after he makes the mistake of sitting for an interview with pompous Paul Galicia, an iconoclastic magazine freelancer. Kelch believes that Galicia wants to use him for background research for a work of fiction, but later finds out that the unscrupulous writer has turned him into the prime subject for a scathing attack on Wall Street incompetence and excess. After the shallow, anti-intellectual Kelch reads Galicia's article his ice-blooded confidence starts to falter. A prize stock at the center of his "focus buy" portfolio takes a nose-dive, and Kelch begins to wonder if he really is the painfully average, "hollow man" depicted in Galicia's story. It's surprising that after a work as oblique and offbeat as Great American Plain that Sernovitz would turn to such straightforward storytelling. Much of the novel's satire seems contrived and diagrammatic. Still, the author has a good ear for Wall Street jargon and corporate inanity like the Freshler CEO's self-justifying maxim, "complicated clients don't mean compromised clients."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

At 28, Wall Street research analyst Chris Kelch is riding high. He's a VP at prestigious investment bank Freshler Feld, ranked fifth in his industry sector, and earning $450,000 a year when things go sour. Kelch's featured stock drops, he makes an unprofessional remark at the conference call following this news, and--worse--he's featured, thinly disguised, in a magazine article that disparages him, his work, his firm, and his life in general by a writer who at best misrepresents what he is doing and at worst is simply unethical. (The writer does point out the conflict of interest of Kelch and his colleagues in protecting their banking clients while advising about investing in their stocks.) Sernovitz (Great American Plain, 2001) skillfully constructs this story, interspersing parts of the magazine article with the interview from which it was written, building a mood of doomed inevitability to a surprise ending as a rising star compounds a stupid mistake and his corporate community reacts. A provocative view of the financial world. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (September 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805067787
• ISBN-13: 978-0805067781
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,099,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staggeringly good, September 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Contrarians: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's a shame in today's zero-sum lit world--in which one gets all the attention or none at all--that writers like Gary Sernovitz aren't read more. His first book was good, if weird; with this, however, he enters big-league American fiction. I'm pretty sure this book is some kind of a masterpiece, and with justice it will find its readership. It rips apart the late-90s world of NY business and culture, but it doesn't just do it in a sappy, whiny way. It takes it seriously, tries to explore it. Sernovitz's tale of a young, "average" guy trapped in the middle of fifteen different cultural impulses is gripping, and the PW review above, I have to say, is Part of the Problem, e.g. He or She Did Not Get The Book. Sad. Please read this and tell others about it. It's that good, and you'll be that appreciative to have found such a young writer with such important, even crucial things to tell us.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Way It Is, July 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Contrarians: A Novel (Hardcover)

I had written a review of this book months ago, but it seems it wasn't accepted for some reason ... no matter, because the more I think about the events in the book, the more I like it.

I have worked on Wall Street, and even knew the author when he was an analyst. He definitely conveys life on the Street with accuracy - the ethical dilemmas, the need for money (more so than the love of it,) the many un-likeable personalities. His main character, Kelch, certainly embodies those elements.

I found the writing style to be witty with occasional flashes of brilliance - the dialog between Kelch and the reporter, the dialog between Kelch and his boss near the book's end, for two examples. And the ambiguous ending is perfect, accurately capturing the ambiguity of life on the Street, or even in Main Street America. And that's why I think this novel works so well - though it is set (somewhat necessarily) on Wall Street, I think there are many parallels to life outside of that world.

Highly recommended, as both a primer to life on the Street, and as a commentary on the many complex issues we all face in our work lives.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the Real Thing !, October 1, 2002

By 

Elwood Lewis (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Contrarians: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is the first Wall Street book that really portrays the real, behind the scenes, in the office activities, schemes and dreams of Wall Street. This is a MUST READ for any one who wants to know what really goes on and for those who "think" they know. This is not my real name, I am part of this Wall Street game and would get in deep trouble, just like the book's main character, if my name got out.