Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy

" Brazilian-born Gil is trying to find the American Dream. In the meantime, he polishes the shoes of the super-rich and powerful on Wall Street--high rolling traders as uninhibited as they are ruthless. Gil sees things as few other people do-from the ground up -and his perspective on the day-to-day insanity of the trading floor is priceless. But this fly-on-the-wall overhears one or two things that maybe he shouldn't. And when a glossy magazine journalist desperate for a big break persuades him to be an undercover source for what may be the biggest insider trading scam in Wall Street history, Gil is catapulted into a danger zone darker than anything he or the journalist could have imagined.

Part comedy-of-manners and social satire, part hard-boiled business expose, Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, like Bonfire of the Vanities, Liar's Poker, and Blood on the Street, pulls back the curtain on the professional habits and private lifestyles of Manhattan's money mandarins. The story, while entirely fictional, is infused with the ring of truth, and in Gil, fresh and captivating, we meet a true original, a sort of latter-day Huckleberry Finn. After you share his hilarious but wise world-view, you may never look at Wall Street-and America--in quite the same way.

"" Less