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Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy
by
Doug Stumpf
Brazilian-born Gil is trying to find the American Dream. In the meantime, he polishes the shoes of the superrich 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 overhea
...morePaperback, 290 pages
Published
June 24th 2008
by Harper Paperbacks
(first published July 1st 2007)
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The author Doug Stumpf takes us in a high moving roller coaster from the perspective of a boy, Gil a shoeshine boy from Brazil. The novel has a slow pace and then it develops into a more suspense and thrill theme. The author brings out the glamour and the hidden secrets of Wall Street and puts them into a mix of mystery and greed that take the reader for a ride. The combination of dialogue and narration captures my attention because as I read the scenes come to life and evolve around in a swift ...more
It was a fun book! I liked that the author realized the main character with his fresh brazilian accent and all! I laughed quite a bit here and i enjoyed as well the descriptions of wall street brokers and scandal, which i know to be factual from personal experience! LOL..If your not laughing with me then you probably need a new job ;D
Didn't finish this book. Just couldn't get into it. It didn't hold my interest.
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Too many characters to keep track of....
Not as sensational as promised.
Not as sensational as promised.
This book was terrible.
This was the worst book I've ever read by a serious author. If I wasnt stuck on a plane wasting time, I would ask for my six hours of my life back. Mediocre book, not much character development, trite use of the shoeshine boy's dialect, and typical Wall Street bad guys add up to a pedestrian effort. Formulaic, pretentious, uninspired, dramaless - I cannot think of enough words to say how juvenile was this work.
I'm almost ashamed to donate it to Goodwill.
I'm almost ashamed to donate it to Goodwill.
Good insight into the corrupt competitive edge of Wall Street. I thought that the immigrant perspective (protagonist "Gil") was an interesting facet that allows the reader to make their own judgment of the various bigotries and arguable caste system within America's elite. That said "Gil's" broken english made for tedious reading.
Delia
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who are interested in Wall Street, fans of The Firm
Recommended to Delia by:
library
Entertaining read along the same vein of The Firm, but a little better. Told by a shoeshine boy with low self-esteem and a struggling magazine writer -- is said to be a true story that was ficitionalized... Worth picking up for a fun beach read.
Chapters flip back and forth between the shoeshine boy and a reporter. Found the chapters by the shoeshine boy to be extremely difficult to follow at times because of the phrasing. Never got invested in the characters.
more mediocre output from one of the gang at vanity fair. what makes it worth three stars, however, is how well stumpf manages to pull of his characters voices. good for the beach or the bathroom.
the shoe shine boy is brazilian, so that got me. the story is quite weak, but the author was very good at writing how brazilians who are learning english talk.
enjoyed it and even more real w/ what is now happening on Wall Street, etc.
A dear friend of mine D. Stumpf.. I swear I will read this!!!
so thats what those folks do all day....hmmm?
Jennifer
marked it as to-read
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