Fixed Income Follies

Last night, "The Devil Wears Prada" was on television and I just couldn't help but stop and watch a little bit of it. I think that book (and the movie) are modern classics, even inspiring derivatives. "Bond Girl," by Erin Duffy has been described as "...Prada" meets "Wall Street," and as a novel, is pretty good. Duffy is a master story-teller, and she created an interesting character in Alexandra, the main protagonist. She is well-fleshed out, and even though in real life, I probably would not like her, I liked her character enough that I sped through this book, finishing it in a day. Maybe because I am very acquainted with the environment she was in. I, too, worked with bond traders for almost thirty years, and she describes the "trader mentality" to a T. I have known every single trader character she has here: the brittle but with a heart-of-gold boss, the happy-go-lucky traders, the bitter women traders who had to prove themselves to be accepted. I assure you, soem of their antics may be crazy and unbelievable, but I have seen worse in real life. If for anything, her stories even have are more "now," as I even consider myself to be "Old School Wall Street." It kind of made me wistful for my old life, but at the same time I also remembered the stress it used to give me and the hard work everyone put in. Wall Street has vicious highs and lows, and she also touches on that in here. The end seemed a little abrupt to me, and I read in her acknowledgements that the original manuscript was 700 pages long, so I kind of wonder how the "long" version might have been like. After my depressing last read, this was a welcome change.

BC-19