Business Fiction

…and no, I’m not talking about pro-forma income statements, but about actual novels.

Howard Davis, writing in Financial Times (8/22) says:

It is often said, with some justification, that there is no current British novelist who shows an interest in, and understanding of business life to match, say, Tom Wolfe. I can think of no fictional representation of the flora and fauna of London’s financial markets to rival The Bonfire of the Vanities. Nor can I imagine a British novelist who could write a magnificent novel about an estate agent, like Richard Ford’s recent The Lay of the Land.

Actually, it seems to me that serious recent novels that deal with business are pretty scarce on both sides of the Atlantic. Right off, I can think of a couple:

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Review of Perfume:The Story of a Murderer

It was about twenty years ago that I first realized that not everyone had a sense of smell that was as keen as my own.

A young lady I was sweet on was strolling with me through a mall, and she wanted to go in to one of those stores that sell fripperies for your bed-and-bath. I had always avoided those places because I dislike strong smells, but this time around there was a girl urging me on. Which one of my male readers hasn’t done something against their natures when a woman is involved?

The interior of the store was just as you would expect. There were sachets, jars of potpourri, perfumed soap, body oils, body washes, shampoos, and various bath oils. The odors had all percolated, mixed together, and produced an overpowering miasma that filled every corner of the store. If there is a hell where bad flowers go when they die, then that store was a portal to that particular perdition.

But I noticed something curious while I was in there. I kept running into people! I would turn or take a step back, absolutely sure that there was no one to trip me up, and I would end up stepping on some poor sap’s foot. What the hell was going on?

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Biscayne Bay Sunset


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