Description:
Just in time for the dot-com meltdown, Lee Gruenfeld shows off his considerable knowledge of the New Economy in The Street, a novel that tries hard to turn the ups and downs of the IPO market into the stuff of thriller fiction--and almost succeeds. James Vincent Hanley is a wage slave on Wall Streetwho decides to turn his insider knowledge into a start-up. Armed with a brilliant business plan and little else, Hanley bamboozles enough big-business types who ought to know better into backing Artemis-5, which he bills as the next new thing. His high-powered board and the money-crazed denizens of Wall Street are convinced that a company with no products, no services, and no expectation of profits is the smartest idea since sliced bread. At first, the unlikely new company is more successful than Hanley ever dreamed. The money's rolling in, and Hanley is well on his way to winning a huge pot in the stock market poker game. Then an SEC enforcer named Thurgren starts sniffing around Artemis-5, and the whole enterprise threatens to collapse. Like Hanley, Thurgren has a mole on the inside of his opponent's operation--and thereby hangs the tale. The Street, while intermittently entertaining and a good introduction to New Economics 101, is plagued by improbable scenarios and a paucity of character development. Gruenfeld can't seem to decide whether he's writing satire or suspense. The entire charade will make sense only to those who believe that the stock market operates according to rational principles and that there is such a thing as a free lunch. --Jane Adams
| 
