✍ Scribed by Teddy Wayne
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Starred Review. Magazine writer Wayne's strong and heartfelt debut novel, set in New York City in the months leading up to the millennium, follows Karim Issar as he leaves his home and family in Qatar for a programming job at a Wall Street firm preparing for the Y2K bug. On the side, the very socially maladapted programming genius creates Kapitoil, a morally troubling computer program that allows his company to make a killing by modeling oil futures based on political instability. Meanwhile, a romance simmers with Rebecca, Karim's colleague and his guide to American culture. Ultimately, Karim must make a choice about his and his family's financial security and Kapitoil's potential for (perhaps) doing good in the world. Wayne zips through a minefield of potential clichés and comes out unscathed, striking a balance of humor and keen insight that propels the story through Karim's education about the West's ethics and its capitalism, while in the background the World Trade Center looms. It's a slick first novel that beautifully captures a time that, in retrospect, seems tragically naïve. (Apr.)
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Starred Review It’s October 1, 1999, and young, brilliant, self-taught programmer Karim Issar is transferred from the Doha, Qatar, office of Schrub Equities to Manhattan for three months to help the high-flying firm get past Y2K without calamity. He finds the work worthwhile but routine, and his always-active mind studies cultural differences and the idiomatic English of his podmates. Within three weeks of his arrival, he has developed a program that predicts oil futures. Schrub’s profits rise dramatically, and Karim gets a plush new office, a 300 percent salary increase, and the personal attention of CEO Derek Schrub. As his stock soars, he embarks on a relationship with Rebecca, his former podmate; with her help, Karim begins to see that making money for the sake of making money isn’t a fully rewarding way of life. Told through Karim’s journal entries, this wonderfully assured debut novel, at once poignant, insightful, and funny, details Karim’s passage through a new world of corporate sharks, Manhattan clubs, museums, Bob Dylan lyrics, and personal growth. Karim’s English, always grammatically correct but stilted with terms from science, mathematics, computing, and business, is a delight. Best of all, however, is simply being inside Karim’s head as he ponders Jackson Pollock’s paintings, baseball, programming, and the mysteries of love and life in the U.S. --Thomas Gaughan
A Novel
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