Bank Story

Union Atlantic

by Adam Haslett

"Truth lay in the aggregate numbers, not in the images of citizens the media alighted upon for a minute or two and then quickly left behind. Currency devaluations created more misery than any corporate criminal ever would. What the populist critics rarely bothered to countenance was the shape of things in the wake of real, systemic collapse."


The author of this novel depicts the operations of the financial world accurately, namely his description of the activities of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York whose President is a character in the novel. However, I was unimpressed with the story and the machinations of the young banker and retired history teacher, who just happens to be the sister of the Fed Bank President, at the heart of the novel. The characters and their actions seem contrived. The lack of convincing portrayals yielded an unsuccessful attempt to achieve any of the ambition that is desired but not demonstrated by this novel.








Union Atlantic by Adam Haslett.  Doubleday, New York. 2009