Customer Reviews

Human Capital: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I happened upon Human Capital and the first thing I was intrigued by was it's colorful, sensual cover. Believe me, this book does not dissapoint. Amidon's prose is direct and yet very artistic, able to convey a range of human emotions. Not only does this book provide the reader with an amazing story and several beautifully written character studies, but it is also real food for thought, an amazing commentary on our society.

I highly recommend this book, especially for more intelligent readers.

Absolutely loved all of the characters in this book. I became so involved with them! I was laughing, crying and everything else, right along with them. I couldn't even say who my favorite character was, but each one was so complex and human.

The story and writing were very good as well, but the main thing that really stuck out to me about this book is how vivid Stephen Amidon's characters are.

I am looking forward to more from him.

Talk about a book you cannot put down!

Part social comment, part mystery and flawlessly written,

it is a novel you will not soon forget.

I never heard of Stephen Amidon before, but I am going to check out his previous novels.

The characters are all too believable, and you really cannot anticipate the ending.

This is one of those rare books you can't put down, but sorry when it has to end.

i was highly impressed by this book. believe me, once you pick this book up, you won't be able to put it down. he writes about bored housewives, teenagers and professional men on top of their game with exceptional skill and wit, he knows how to really explore a character. i was very moved by the end of this book.

Beautifully balanced story-telling, smart observations, good, clean prose. Amidon takes you inside several different lives and does so effortlessly. Interesting from beginning to end. Buy this novel.

Maybe I am just too sensitive, being the manager of a small hedge fund, but the scenes in which Drew, a small investor who does nor have a clue about the risks and rewards of investing in a hedge fund, is sure he will make 44% per year without any risk of loss, do not ring true. In addition, the focus on dividends is almost unheard of with respect to hedge funds. Finally, a big time hedge fund manager like Quint would not take in an individual investor with a mere $250,000 investment. He would be running a fund for "qualified" investors, which is not limited to 99 investors.

Other than the flawed presentation of hedge fund basics vis-a-vis small investors, the book is compelling reading. Nevertheless, the unbelievable premise that a small investor could ever invest in a mega hedge fund gnaws at me like a sitting on a thumbtack on a beautiful sofa.

Amidon should have let some hedge fund managers read through the manuscript first. Maybe he tried but couldn't get anyone to do it. Most of them are rather secretive, thinking (with some justification) they need to protect their trading strategies from competition.

I began this book expecting a light-ish suburban drama -- and was hugely, pleasantly surprised to find so much more. Amidon gets deep into the underbelly of suburban class insecurities, and deep inside each of his characters. These are very real people with their own unique histories and desires, whose lives intersect at parties, at high school, in the grocery store, over business, and then suddenly converge in more sinister ways. Nothing is quite what it seems in Totten Crossing. This is a great story, but it's also a beautifully written look at the people who inhabit a certain kind of town at a very specific time in the United States.

Despite some technical shortfalls -- Amidon is no hedge fund expert -- this is one of the best books I've read among my two hundred plus Amazon reviews. Amidon provides detailed descriptions of people and place, creates credible tension between otherwise unattached characters, and draws up some interesting pairings, be they the ignored wife and the film critic, the daughter and the social drop out, or the grubby real estate agent and the regal hedge fund manager. These are people striving to get ahead, or to meet often unreasonable expectations, and it makes this an engaging tale of human woe based on wanting or asking for too much.

This is a thoroughly entertaining novel, set in the prosperous exurban western toe of Connecticut. At first I was put off by the soap opera ambience. Some of the plot themes are old (as were Shakespeare's) such as the "hit and run'" accident and the desperate losing financial gamble, teenage druggies, and the rich man's adulterous wife. By the end I was pulled into the story and engrossed in the characters and turning the pages to see what happened next. There's a lot of expertise about classical movies, real estate and hedge funds. (At least it seemed expert to me - I don't know enough to be sure).

The book jacket suggests two comparisons, by both of which the novel suffers. I think Perotta, who wrote one of the recommendations, is a far better writer about the middle-class tri-state scene although it is doubtful if he could pull off a multi-charactered narrative of this length and complexity. Compared with Wolfe's, Amidon's satirical edge is blunt. "Bonfire of the Vanities" is much sharper and more outrageously comic, with no hesitancy about ethnic stereotypes. (The only nonwhites in this are two peripheral Asiatics; it is hinted that someone uttered an ethnic slur while drunk; nobody has a religion). Of course many readers may not like sharp and outrageous.

Amidon is a superb craftsman. He switches unobtrusively between his characters' points of view; he can cliff-hang with the best of them and jump from one thread of his story to another without letting us lose interest. Dialog is believable and clichés are absent. He is a master of his art but not a great artist. Originality, innovation, and the touch of genius are missing.

I read Amidon's "The New City" and I was blown away by the detailed characters, the plot twists . . . it was truly one of the best books I read, and I entered "Human Capital" with similarly high expectations. All in all, I found it to be an engaging read, full of everything that you come to love about Stephen Amidon. While I was a little disappointed with the ending (hint: the story revolves around stockbrokers in the summer of 2001), it was still very satisfying. As an aspiring writer myself I hope to one day come with in a hair of Amidon's talent.