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Our Little Racket

Review

Our Little Racket

Some books published during the summer months are “guilty pleasure” reads, but this debut novel aspires to be more. Advance quotes compare it to the works of Henry James, Edith Wharton and John Cheever, dealing as it does with greed among the monied classes. OUR LITTLE RACKET takes place during the financial crisis of 2008 and portrays the lives of the Greenwich wives, daughters and friends of the fallen and falling titans. It’s not a pretty picture, despite their routines of pampering, parties and full-priced Laboutins.

Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Madison, a precocious 14-year-old when the story starts, though we leave her when she’s in her 20s, looking back on her naïve younger self. We also see the world through Lily, the highly educated, initially loyal family helper, and Mina, Madison’s mother Isabel’s devoted friend. Amanda, Madison’s childhood friend and the daughter of an economics professor who wants to expose Wall Street’s corruption, plays a role, as does a journalist who is trying to get the inside scoop from anyone who will talk to him.

"While author Angelica Baker often gets at some of the insecurities that drive so many of the women in this wealthy enclave, she has little empathy for any of them, including her protagonists."

But the D’Amico family is at the heart of this story. Brash, ambitious, disgraced father Bob is modeled at least in part on Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, whose bankruptcy threatened to take the rest of Wall Street down. There are also references to Bernie Madoff throughout, and Bob seems to be an amalgam of them and other aggressive, manipulative men who bend the rules but can still say with incredulity, “Until they put me in the ground…I will wonder why this happened to me.”

When Bob’s bank hits the shoals, Greenwich society closes its ranks, with Bob, Isabel and their family left on the outside. This is in part because neither Bob nor Isabel ever spent much time getting involved in their community, and in part because their fall has financial implications for those around them. One fundraiser to which they are invited --- and decide to come, much to everyone’s feigned consternation --- brings them face to face with their erstwhile friends and colleagues. The explosive confrontation that results shatters any hope they have of returning to the life they used to take for granted.

While author Angelica Baker often gets at some of the insecurities that drive so many of the women in this wealthy enclave, she has little empathy for any of them, including her protagonists. So the impact of the denouement, which takes place close to the end of this 500-page tome, is less disturbing, even anticlimactic.

Though this is an intelligent, keen-eyed tale about a world as it’s imploding, Baker hasn’t presented a balanced enough portrait of her characters to give the reader enough reason to feel like the investment has paid off.

Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley on June 23, 2017

Our Little Racket
by Angelica Baker

  • Publication Date: June 20, 2017
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Hardcover: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Ecco
  • ISBN-10: 006264131X
  • ISBN-13: 9780062641311