Customer Reviews

Someone else's money

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This is my "all time favorite" book. As the cover review says, you will enjoy this novel - unless money, art, power and sex bore you. I have read it a dozen or more times. I can open it at any page and find myself unable to put it down. I won't take it out of my house in case I loose it, although, thanks to Amazons' out of print service, I now have a second copy.

Michael Thomas, with his background in art and banking has written a most wonderful novel linking these two subjects. The banking and Wall Street angle is ruthless and cynical, whilst some of the passages describing the (imaginary) Watteau paintings, move me almost to tears whenever I read them. So compelling was his, or rather his character Nick Revery's, praise of Watteau that I journeyed to Berlin, principally, to see "Pilgrimage to the island of Cythera" in the Charlottenburg.

I can't understand why books as wonderful as this can be out of print. Although written in 1982, it would be accurate and prophetic if written today, such was Michael Thomas' foresight.

This novel works as a financial thriller and as satirical literary fiction -- almost a latter-day version of Mark Twain's THE GILDED AGE or Dickens' LITTLE DORRIT. The plot: A conservative Texas billionaire uses his fortune to redress the moral wrongs of American society. The method he chooses is to create an imaginary company and convince a gaggle of New York investors and institutions to put their money in it, ruining them and sending shock waves through the economy. This may have seemed like a far-fetched premise in 1982... but post-Enron, the only surprising thing is Michael Thomas isn't still gloating about his clairvoyance. Part of the reason might be that SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY is out of print, which is a tragedy. As a thriller, it's dated, but as satire it's timeless. And the book's targets - supply-side Republicans, corporate greed, New York socialites, self-help scams - have not gone away either. A pop-fiction BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, Michael Thomas' novel is ambitious and malicious, wistful and spiteful, with memorable characters. Thomas was both a former Wall Streeter and Metropolitan Museum art curator, and he is equally at home with financial fast-talk and the world of art. This novel is a tour-de-force and a rare example of a good writer laying aside his weaknesses. Thomas' next few novels were retreads, and he is now sidelined, with a sinecure as a New York Observer columnist. It would be nice to see him try one more time to spin a novel like this - or to see another writer take on business, art, politics, and love with the same success.