In the City, everything has a price. What's yours?At the age of twenty-eight, Dubliner Geri Molloy has put her troubled past behind her to become a major player at Steiner's investment bank in London, earning £850k a year doing business with a reclusive hedge fund manager in Hong Kong who, in return for his patronage, likes to ask her about Kant and watch while she eats exotic Asian delicacies. For five years Geri has had it all, but in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, her life starts to unravel. Abandoned by her corporate financier boyfriend, in the grip of a debilitating insomnia, and drinking far too much, Geri becomes entangled in a hostile takeover involving her boss, her client and her ex. With her career on the line as a consequence, and no one to turn to, she is close to losing it, in every sense.Taut and fast-paced, On the Floor is about making money and taking risks; it's about getting away with it, and what happens when you're no longer one step ahead; ultimately, though, it's a reminder to never, ever underestimate the personal cost of success.
On the Floor
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in On the Floor for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Card, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more
|
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
'On the Floor is a riveting novel from a unique talent' --Irish Tatler
'Impressively constructed ... a short, snappy and ultra-smart drama' --Daily Mirror
'Campbell knows this world well, so it all feels authentic' --Irish Sunday Times
`Campbell has taken a considerable risk with such a wry, tough offering. But then again, risks reap dividends.' --Irish Sunday Independent
`An energetic and illuminating read ... both eloquent and funny'
` Aifric Campbell knows her subject and her descriptions of the bustling trading floor have the ring of truth. -- FT
'The slick pace and the atmosphere of gobby vulgarity are so different from Campbell s previous work that they confirm her as a versatile, smart, highly readable writer. ' Irish Times --Independent
'Impressively constructed ... a short, snappy and ultra-smart drama' --Daily Mirror
'Campbell knows this world well, so it all feels authentic' --Irish Sunday Times
`Campbell has taken a considerable risk with such a wry, tough offering. But then again, risks reap dividends.' --Irish Sunday Independent
`An energetic and illuminating read ... both eloquent and funny'
` Aifric Campbell knows her subject and her descriptions of the bustling trading floor have the ring of truth. -- FT
'The slick pace and the atmosphere of gobby vulgarity are so different from Campbell s previous work that they confirm her as a versatile, smart, highly readable writer. ' Irish Times --Independent
Book Description
The higher you fly, the further you have to fall.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
By Ripple
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Geri Molloy, the central character in Aifric Campbell's "On The Floor" may be earning a six figure salary working at a London investment bank just prior to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, but she's seriously messed up. Drinking heavily, sleeping lightly and mourning the end of a relationship, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom she trades, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other people.
The City setting of the book potentially sets two challenges. Firstly the workings of the City can be complex and difficult to understand and writers have to steer a path between over-simplification and downright unnecessary confusion. As Campbell has one of her characters recognize, even those involved didn't necessarily understand what they were doing which leads to the second pitfall which is more difficult: the public's response to the City post financial crash. At the time that this book is set, we were still in the grip of the "Wall Street" glamour with Gordon Gekko's mantra of "greed is good" and "lunch is for wimps" ringing in our ears. Today in a world where we are more likely to celebrate the "sir-cumcision" of Fred Goodwin, the financial world is seen in a very different light. Both of these challenges are largely dispelled by the fact that Campbell herself spent 13 years working as an investment banker and so knows what she's talking about. Who better to tell it like it was?
Campbell doesn't over-glamorize the life, but neither does she jump on the band-wagon of slating the City. Focussing on a lost individual and making it a personal story, she uses the financial world to give pace to the story while revealing the difficulties of being a female in that macho world.... Read more ›
The City setting of the book potentially sets two challenges. Firstly the workings of the City can be complex and difficult to understand and writers have to steer a path between over-simplification and downright unnecessary confusion. As Campbell has one of her characters recognize, even those involved didn't necessarily understand what they were doing which leads to the second pitfall which is more difficult: the public's response to the City post financial crash. At the time that this book is set, we were still in the grip of the "Wall Street" glamour with Gordon Gekko's mantra of "greed is good" and "lunch is for wimps" ringing in our ears. Today in a world where we are more likely to celebrate the "sir-cumcision" of Fred Goodwin, the financial world is seen in a very different light. Both of these challenges are largely dispelled by the fact that Campbell herself spent 13 years working as an investment banker and so knows what she's talking about. Who better to tell it like it was?
Campbell doesn't over-glamorize the life, but neither does she jump on the band-wagon of slating the City. Focussing on a lost individual and making it a personal story, she uses the financial world to give pace to the story while revealing the difficulties of being a female in that macho world.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Susie B
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Set during the lead up to the Gulf War in 1991, Aifric Campbell's third novel: 'On the Floor' is first person narrated by twenty-eight-year-old Geraldine (Geri) Molloy. Geri is a major player on the stock market at Steiner's, a London investment bank, where she made her name by acquiring the firm's biggest client, Felix Mann, a hedge fund manager with his two billion stockpile of funds, who won't deal with anyone else on the floor. This means that Geri keeps her high profile job with its six figure salary even though, lately, her sales figures have been decreasing; however, Geri knows that she has to 'up her game' before her immediate boss, the Grope, realizes that her figures are not just going through a plateau and that she could just be losing her touch. And it's not just her touch that Geri is losing; she has lost her much-loved, long-term boyfriend and, underneath her hard-faced, ambitious exterior, Geri is not coping at all. She is drinking way too much, eating very little and hardly sleeping at all and when Felix starts to insist that, in order to keep his business, she moves out to join him in Hong Kong, Geri realizes that she does not own her own life anymore. And then she goes into meltdown.
Aifric Campbell used her own experiences from thirteen years spent on the trading floor to add authenticity to this fast-paced and gripping story about the tough reality of life in the city, so be prepared for a large cast of fairly unlikeable and unsympathetic characters, plenty of swearing and a fair amount of sex. As one of Geri's less driven male colleagues says to her after she passes out, blind drunk in his shower: "Why can't you just stop swearing and drinking and running around and wasting everything that's good?... maybe you're just a bit of a slut.... Read more ›
Aifric Campbell used her own experiences from thirteen years spent on the trading floor to add authenticity to this fast-paced and gripping story about the tough reality of life in the city, so be prepared for a large cast of fairly unlikeable and unsympathetic characters, plenty of swearing and a fair amount of sex. As one of Geri's less driven male colleagues says to her after she passes out, blind drunk in his shower: "Why can't you just stop swearing and drinking and running around and wasting everything that's good?... maybe you're just a bit of a slut.... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Authentic and sensitively written.Both my wife and myself enjoyed immensely. I would recommend to all,not just those in the City
By Eli Lederman
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Campbell does a magnificent job setting the stage for the story with trading floors that reek of egos and greed, vividly populated by characters who are simultaneously intense and desperately shallow. Her prose moves at pace and style that convey the authentic energy of the go-go 80's in finance, but the most compelling part of this book is the beautiful and deeply moving portrayal of the heroine at the centre of it all. Fiercely independent and profoundly vulnerable, lost and found, Geri emerges as so eminently believable. This novel is harrowing and fun, sensitive and racy - it is work of genuinely literary quality and artful writing.
By cname87
Format:Paperback
Well written novel about a woman suffering a breakdown whilst working in the financial industry in London, so yes go ahead and buy it. Aifric Campbell, by all accounts, has the life experience to talk about such matters so you would have to take her seriously. However, if I were a woman I would be screaming at the book about it confirming male perspectives on woman in senior positions, i.e. they're going to fall for some man and subjugate their entire being to him and not focus on their career, they're going to be moody and eventually irrational, and they're going to be whingers.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Simon Clarke
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Aifric Campbell's third novel,is witty,intelligent and very
readable.
Set in 1991,as the Gulf War is about to commence,Geri Molloy,
a young Irish woman,from a humble background,but with a
remarkable facility for numbers,is a highly paid trader in
a London investment bank. She is in the throes of a breakdown.
Her boyfriend has ditched her,she hardly sleeps or eats and
she drinks heavily.Her lofty position at work is dependent on
the patronage of an iconoclastic hedge fund manager in Hong Kong.
As the story develops towards a hugely lucrative deal,Geri has to face how
much control she has over her life,as those she interacts with
treat other people as commodities to be used and discarded.
readable.
Set in 1991,as the Gulf War is about to commence,Geri Molloy,
a young Irish woman,from a humble background,but with a
remarkable facility for numbers,is a highly paid trader in
a London investment bank. She is in the throes of a breakdown.
Her boyfriend has ditched her,she hardly sleeps or eats and
she drinks heavily.Her lofty position at work is dependent on
the patronage of an iconoclastic hedge fund manager in Hong Kong.
As the story develops towards a hugely lucrative deal,Geri has to face how
much control she has over her life,as those she interacts with
treat other people as commodities to be used and discarded.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews
3.5 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Full of stereotypes and typos
This is a weird book. The book is so full of stereotypes, it's like Wall Street and Gordon Gekko all over again. What is the point? Not really sure. Read more
Published 7 months ago by F. S. Carr
3.0 out of 5 stars
A horrifying portrayal of amoral bankers
This is a novel of three parts. The first third is a very compelling and fascinating pen-picture of daily life on the hectic macho and materialist trading floor of a major... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Stefan43
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poorly proof-read
My enjoyment of this novel was totally marred by the number of mistakes in the text. It is what it is - a light-hearted chick-lit romp through the square mile with a smattering of... Read more
Published 13 months ago by A-M Davis
4.0 out of 5 stars
An insight into the life of the city.
This book was an enjoyable read, giving an interesting insight into the stresses and strains of the trading floor. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Moth
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great pacy novel
I really enjoyed this book. It takes the stock exchange and explains the big deals, the conniving, the homage to the buck mentality and left me feeling that I am glad I am not part... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Sue
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
