Bombardiers

I love this book! I read it for the first time back in business school, I think. And just re-read it and enjoyed it even more the second time. Stories set in the workplace are out of vogue, perhaps exacerbated by COVID. But this is the kind of story any professional can relate to, brilliantly satirized with Bronson's wry wit. I wish there were contemporary novels like this, but there just... aren't. Maybe it's considered too mainstream now. What is so often missed about "workplace" novels, is that they are really not about the workplace at all -- they're about the human condition. The workplace is just the catalyst. I hope there will be a next generation of novels like this one.

Bombardiers is Po Bronson's debut novel. The thematic chapters that read more like interconnected short stories follow a group of salespeople who sell more and more outrageous financial products.

This book should have set off alarm bells in the 1990s and early 2000s. Every scheme these salespeople try was being done by actual financial salespeople on Wall Street and in the big banks.

Reading this on the backside of the most recent financial collapse deflated the humor for me. Instead of being wacky, silly or outrageous parody, it was just depressing. Maybe ten years ago I would have naively enjoyed it.

Bombardiers is, in a word, brilliant. In a few more words, it's devastatingly funny, as wise as any Wall Street guru, and bitter as a cup of jet-black coffee. Po knows all the secret vices of America's business community: material greed, sexism, the machine mentality, and the smug assurance that no matter how bad things get, the government will always be there to bail them out.

Full review: http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/reviews/bronson.cfm

An OK read...it struck me as a bit 'dated' especially in in light of some other more recent writings/events/movies. For example, 'Bonfire of the Vanities' was much more enjoyable; and Michael Lewis' similar writing was more enlightening about the financial industry. I generaly like Po Bronson's books; and if I would have read it back when it was published originally, I am sure I would have had a more favorable impression.