Lake Success

This story reminds me of A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe, but amid the wolves of Wall Street. A road trip set in 2016, with a clueless hedge-fund protagonist only a mother could love. For some reason I was thoroughly absorbed in this man's flight from reality and into his past. There's a lot of money-hunger in the 1%, and those who feel they must crawl up there. Bad fathers, immigrant dreams, insider trading, how to be friendly when you really want to hide in the corner, failing up - ah, the American dream.

“Barry knew he was good at making and losing money and getting paid for both handsomely.” — Gary Shteyngart, “Lake Success”

In Gary Shteyngart's deceptively good 2018 novel “Lake Success,” hedge fund manager Barry Cohen gets paid handsomely indeed even though he loses much more money for his clients than he makes. I say "deceptively good" because the novel turns out to be much better than you might think in the early going.

Gary, we find, is also good at both making and losing friends. He's an outgoing guy, which is why he attracts investors, but he proves to be too shallow and too needy to maintain relationships. His collection of expensive watches, "the implements of his true desire," is the only thing that really matters show more to him. And this includes his Indian-American wife Seema and their 3-year-old autistic son Shiva.

With his marriage in shambles and the feds closing in because of his Wall Street dealing, Barry takes a few of his favorite watches and begins a cross-country bus trip to try to start his life over again. Mostly he hopes to reclaim his college girlfriend, now divorced and with a son of her own. He trashes his wedding ring, his cell phone and his credit cards, and because he is always trying to make a good impression on people he meets along the way, he is soon out of cash and turns to begging.

Gary thinks of his bus trip as significant, the beginning of Act 2 of his life, yet he returns pretty much the same man, just one with interesting stories to tell. He's still a lousy husband and father, good only at making money while losing other people's money. Soon he is left with only his beloved watches. Yet somehow Barry does change by the end, and the inspiration for that change comes from an unexpected quarter.

Shteyngart's novel, with the 2016 presidential campaign as a backdrop, delivers both tears and laughter to its readers, at least those who can get past the opening pages. show less

I scored a proof of Lake Success, Gary Shteyngart’s new book. I can’t believe I can read a book about a one percenter hedge fund manager who lives in the skinny glass tower overlooking Madison Square Park without retching, but Shteyngart has made him almost likable. Living in Manhattan makes you think about money. More specifically, it makes you think about wealth, because it takes more than a little money to really take advantage of everything that New York has to offer.

Barry Cohen is 43, and he’s married an Indian dime that he really loves, but their marriage is strained to the breaking point when their son, Shiva, is diagnosed with severe autism.

Barry is also on the brink of being subpoenaed for some shady trading issues. His show more fund has lost billions. At a true crisis in his life, he undertakes a road trip by Greyhound from New York to El Paso to see his ex-girlfriend from college.

Ultimately I read this as Barry's search for connection, intimacy, authenticity, perhaps for his own soul. For meaning in life. But Barry is deeply flawed, probably because his mom died when he was little and his dad didn't have much emotional capacity to model for him. He manages to find these brief flashes of connection with people, and has to be satisfied with them. He tries to fill the emptiness inside with an enormous watch collection. He fixes a delicate and extremely complicated watch by hand for his son. A gesture with so much meaning for him, which probably can't really be communicated to his son through the watch, but is the best he can do to reach across the gulf between them. And he throws him a really nice Bar Mitzvah. There is a bond formed, but the frailty of the bond emphasized for me the loneliness of the characters, and the pain of postmodern American life. We grope through our screens for each other, but we only see through a glass darkly, so we mostly fail. show less

The characters were largely unlikable but I found them endearing in their flawed humanity. I'm something of a sucker for dramatic gestures and epic bus trips.

Interesting exploration of the concept of luck and our inclination to discount it if things are going well for us (the myth of the "self-made man"). But then, if we can't lose because the system is set up in our favor, is that luck? What is the difference between "luck" and "privilege"?

Lake Success will challenge you with an unlikable protagonist. Barry Cohen is an obscenely rich hedge fund manager who decides to leave his wife and autistic son to take a bus ride to reconnect with his college girlfriend. His travelling companion is a suitcase full of expensive watches.

My favorite passage from the book:

“Is it true that your chief compliance officer had no relevant experience in the financial industry? That his sole educational credential was a bachelor’s in Russian studies from Middlebury College? That you met him at a party thrown by your friend Joseph Moses Goldblatt at the Flashdancers Gentlemen’s Club?

Lake Success uses Barry’s travels, failings and occasional successes to paint a portrait of America wrapped show more up in the Trump election.

I loved Gary Shteyngart’s writing. You should add Lake Success to your To-Read List. show less

Barry Cohen, the lead character in this 2018 novel fits the mold of an anti-hero. In the opening chapter, we find him drunk and bleeding in a Greyhound bus terminal in the middle of the night. The reader soon learns he is a wealthy hedge fund financier whose world is falling apart. He is a man with a troubled marriage and a three-year-old son who is autistic and has yet to speak a single word. On top of that, he is under investigation for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. His plan is to travel across America in search of a simpler life and the possibility to reconnect with his college sweetheart.

The year is 2016, and Donald Trump is running for President against Hillary Clinton. Cohen’s odyssey by bus takes him to show more Richmond, Atlanta, El Paso, and finally to California. While the story focuses primarily on him, there are chapters devoted to his wife Seena as well. It is difficult to feel sorry for this affluent married couple, despite their troubles. After all, both lead privileged lives, and despite Cohen’s attempt to connect with “regular people” on his bus trip, he can return, any time he chooses, to a bank account that will see him through the roughest of times.

Wisely, the author uses comedic elements and a satirical overview to keep the reader engaged. And the supporting characters encountered on the road trip provide a steady breath of fresh air. What impressed me the most is that he does not attempt to wrap up the story with a “then they lived happily ever after” scenario. Shteyngart is a gifted author who has earned critical acclaim throughout his career. Lake Success continues his winning streak, even if Barry Cohen fails to be a character most readers can identify with. show less

LAKE SUCCESS is Gary Shteyngart mustering his prodigious skillset for satire, compassion, and humor to render his view of America today. He cleverly filters this through a character who is all too reminiscent of Trump. Barry Cohen is validated almost exclusively through money and possessions. At bottom, he is an intensely narcissistic and delusional grifter. Not unlike America, these flaws exist alongside aspirations for altruism and beneficence. Indeed, Shteyngart captures the fundamental American political dichotomy—fear of being shamed (R’s) versus guilt for not being better (D’s). Along with this larger ambition, the novel also folds in the challenges faced by parents of autistic children and the psychoses associated with show more white male privilege.

The story begins and ends in Manhattan (of course), but manages to show us America from a Greyhound bus much like Simon and Garfunkel did in the 60’s. Barry’s “look for America” comes in Baltimore (drug dealers), Richmond (liberal middle class), Atlanta (financial strivers), Jackson (old confederacy), El Paso/Juarez (immigrants), Phoenix (homeless) and finally Southern California (the American Dream). In less skilled hands, his random journey through America might seem shopworn, but Shteyngart’s writing renders his encounters vividly with satire and humor. As an immigrant himself, Shteyngart captures well the feelings that come from cultural dislocation.

Barry has convinced himself that this journey (without his black Amex card or cell phone, but with his collection of hugely expensive watches) in search of his college sweetheart will reclaim the happiness he somehow lost along the way (MAGA hat anyone?). Of course, even the casual reader knows he is kidding himself. Barry is running from a failed marriage to a trophy wife, an autistic son he can’t relate to despite being on the spectrum himself, and the law.

The novel’s biggest flaw is Barry. This is a guy few would want to spend much time with, let alone an entire book. He is a running joke that never fails to provoke loathing despite the laughs. Unfortunately his self-involvement and shallowness fail to provoke empathy. Shteyngart tries to show some sense of redemption for Barry with an unbelievable ending that may be too little and too late for most. show less