Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance [Paperback]

Matthew Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2003

Predatory Bender covers the nitty-gritty of lives in the consumer finance industry. Salespeople used borrowers and profits flowed to some of the largest banks in the world. The book is a novel with a non-fiction afterward about reforming the industry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Matthew Lee

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Inner City Press (October 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974024414
• ISBN-13: 978-0974024417
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,297,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beating the devil with an ugly stick, January 26, 2004

By 

Hubert Van Tol (Sparta, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance (Paperback)

A great read! The steam was still rising off the words when I sat down to read Mr. Lee's novel about a predatory lender and the colorful group of characters bobbling about it. The characterizations are heavy-handed, yet curiously deft; there can be no doubt as you read about EmpiGroup and its no-holds-barred leader, Sandy Vyle, that you're getting a rollicking send up of Citigroup, the Borg corporation that glides through American financial life with the message that "resistance is futile."

This is not an English major's novel (Mr. Lee could have used a better proofreader and a tough editor), but if you're sick of corporations that run the world, government regulators who run interference for them, and journalists for whom the term "investigative" is a historical curiosity, then buy this book and enjoy several hours of a smart, funny writer who clearly enjoys mixing it up with the Big Boys. In the end the EmpiGroups of the world will win, but Mr. Lee gives them a few bruises to remember him by.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Predatory Bender: book exposes predatory lenders with humor, December 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance (Paperback)

"Predatory Bender" by Matthew Lee is a sharp book that aims to expose a sharp practice: the ways in which banks target poor communities with high cost loans, foreclose on people's homes, and trap them in debt. The novel is set in a low income part of New York, the Bronx. A woman gets a loan, not to buy a house but a bed, strangely or appropriately enough. She is sold insurance; all told, she owes over five thousand dollars. The man making the loan, Jack Bender, at first laughs, but soon enough things change for him. His own company, the so-called EmpiGroup, seemingly based on the world's largest bank, turns on him, sicking the police on him. He offers evidence first to a dodgy community activist-type, then to a similarly (but differently) dodgy plaintiffs' lawyer, who approaches the attorney general, who because ambitious is in league with Empi, and things go from there. The chief executives of Empigroup, including one hired from the Clinton cabinet, are caricatured as they try to put out this unlikely bed-loan fire. But the fire just grows...

With this novel, Mr. Lee has defied expectations, at least of this reader. The book is not simplistic; it does not paint all consumers as pure and all lenders as ruthless. Everyone is subject to some satire, including characters we'd assume are near or dear to the author (drawing this assumption from www.innercitypress.org/formedia.html). "Predatory Bender," as novel, is a dark comedy, a sort of subprime lending Catch-22, or reminiscent of the fiction of another (then) Bronx writer, Don DeLillo. Neither analogy quite captures it -- "Predatory Bender" is truly a unique book, or books -- its afterword, "Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City," is printed upside down, such that the book can be started from either direction. The afterword is keyed to the novel's 60 chapters; one may wish to jump from one to the other and back, as in the Internet's hypertext mark-up language. By the end of the experience, one knows more about predatory lending and those who suffer, practice and profit from it; one has insights into how and why government investigations begin and end, so often without bringing about real change, and one may then want, as this reader did, to change the conditions that allows this reverse Robin Hood groove to go on. One has also laughed, repeatedly, as well as groaning and shaking one's head. All in all, not a bad ride, for a paperback novel. We'll be hearing more from Matthew Lee, it's fair to surmise, unless the banks get him first.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bender is a Must, December 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Predatory Bender: A Story of Subprime Finance (Paperback)

Predatory Bender is in the best of the Mucraking tradition. What Upton Sinclair is to exposing the meat industry, Matthew Lee is to exposing predatory lenders. This book is captivating; its characters are complex and leap off the page. The protagonist himself is complicated. Although he can be absolutely disgusting, he also shows remorse for his lending misdeeds and seeks, in his self-serving way, to expose the worse elements in the industry. To a well-read layperson, predatory lending is becoming too familiar through numerous media accounts of the last few years. Mr. Lee's book will hopefully push the national momentum to do something over the top, and will motivate Congress and the federal government to outlaw this heinous practice. Just as it was necessary for the federal government to create standards for the food industry, it is necessary for the government to establish strong protections in the lending industry so that hard-working families do not lose their wealth at the hands of predatory lenders. We all should thank Mr. Lee for making a valuable contribution to the national discourse over this pressing problem. Predatory Benders is a must read! Buy it for your loved ones for a holiday gift!