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    Union Atlantic
    Union Atlantic
    Union Atlantic
    Audiobook10 hours

    Union Atlantic

    Written by Adam Haslett

    Narrated by David Aaron Baker

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The eagerly anticipated debut novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist You Are Not a Stranger Here: a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century. At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte's grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company's struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte's brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system. Drawn into Doug and Charlotte's intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them. Irresistibly complex, imaginative, and witty, Union Atlantic is a singular work of fiction that is sure to be read and reread long after it causes a sensation this spring. "Union Atlantic is a masterful portrait of our age."-Malcolm Gladwell
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 5, 2010
    ISBN9781440784392
    Union Atlantic

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    Reviews for Union Atlantic

    3.5/5

    127 ratings13 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      While not nearly as good as his short stories this is still a good story about how greed in the financial markets can easily bring the financial system down.
    • 5/5
      Adam Haslett is one of a group of talented writers (Jonathan Dee, Michael Mewshaw, Dan Chaon) describing turn of the century social and personal dilemmas in their novels. The novelty of the books is not in the themes explored; they appear in fiction at the beginning of each century. Themes involving social responsibility, personal accountability, the rule of law, ethics, insight, and absolute/relative truth have been explored by many great authors(e.g., Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain). It is the interpretation of time in its current context, how it is structured and understood by societies and individuals, that make these contemporary authors stand out now. Union Atlantic is an exciting story of high finance with well-developed and interesting characters who try to make sense of the times they are in and gain insight into their own psychological development. The action is centered on the activities of a New York bank that grew as a traditional money lending institution in the volatile economy of the first decade of the 21st Century. As a result of aggressive financial tactics, at first within the letter of the law, Union Atlantic distanced itself from tradition and became a leader in international trading. The novel concerns the consequences of the separation of traditional ethics and current banking practices, the rejection of historical rules and the establishment of risky procedures justified by present opportunities. The characters are affected by their social history and current events in a similar way in the post 9/11 world. Nate associates with economically advantaged teenage peers who are largely ignorant of history. The focus of his life involves trying to understand his emerging personal desires without the historical context of abiding moral standards. Doug, at 37, is the chief high stakes organizer at Union Atlantic. He was educated in traditional business practices, but understands his personal responsibility on a short term basis, as if old standards are irrelevant in the current financial climate. Charlotte, a retired high school history teacher, understands the connection between American history and her own life path. She sees a common pattern in the apparent chaos of both time lines, rejecting her comfortable solitude after realizing her inner life is only one part of her story. The integrity of the bank depends on public trust and the parallel integrity of the characters depends personal trust. The bank can stay in business if the public has faith in the long term propriety of its transactions. The current context allows for some violation of this standard as long as the current activities show a profit. The characters can live with themselves as long as they have faith in the long term propriety of love. The current context allows for some violation of this standard as long as immediate needs are met. The problem with both violations is that the phrase, `as long as,' in the novel is short term. The real dilemma for Union Atlantic and the characters is the integration of lessons of the past with actions in present circumstances. I strongly recommend Adam Haslett's novel, Union Atlantic to readers who like an exciting story and insightful character development. I predict that the themes will be repeated in a new context by novelists in the first decade of the 22nd Century.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this book more than I did. I liked the theme and the ideas behind the book, but something about the characters left me cold.
    • 3/5
      I picked this up after hearing the author read the first paragraph of the first chapter, which was funny and stylish. Sadly, the writing never quite crackled like that again. Nevertheless, the lonely spinster and her 'talking' dogs was an excellent invention, and the various storylines all ended satisfactorily, which is no mean feat.
    • 3/5
      A quick glance at the rating panel indicates that Union Atlantic is dividing opinion. I'm in two minds about it myself. To get the negatives out of the way first, I don't think the graphic bedroom scenes were necessary, they seemed sordid rather than sensual, though perhaps that was the intention? I also think it was a pity that, Charlotte Graves, the only person who stood against the trends in society that helped produce the banking crisis was painted as a mad woman who talked to her pet dogs. It may be that the intention was to set up two opposing extremes, and that Charlotte's brother Henry, a senior figure in banking regulation, was meant to represent a more rational and pragmatic counter to the gambling bosses of the Union Atlantic bank.On the positive side, it painted a plausible version of how the West, and Western financial institutions in particular, got us to where we are today. The timing of this particular banking collapse may have been brought forward five years, but clearly references the events of 2008. To that extent, it was clear from the start where the business side of the plot was heading, nevertheless, and irrespective of whether you actually like any of the characters, you are carried along by a desire to see how it plays out for them.Anyone looking for a more nuanced, though no less dramatic, fictional account of the financial crisis that began in 2008 would do well to read This Bleeding City by Alex Preston. There is probably even more sex and drugs in Preston's book - certainly harder drugs at any rate - but it is a rollcoaster ride that I think will resonate with me longer than Union Atlantic.
    • 2/5
      The author of this novel depicts the operations of the financial world accurately, namely his description of the activities of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York whose President is a character in the novel. However, I was unimpressed with the story and the machinations of the young banker and retired history teacher, who just happens to be the sister of the Fed Bank President, at the heart of the novel. Our country deserves both better and more convincing portrayals that achieve more of the ambition that is desired but not demonstrated by this novel.
    • 4/5
      To some, Doug Fanning would seem to have it all, yet he is damaged goods. His traumatic childhood and experiences in the Gulf War have left him emotionally stunted. Post 9/11, he seemingly lives for his job as a high-powered investment banker, caring for nothing and no-one, and he takes risks – big ones.Charlotte Graves used to be a teacher, now retired she moulders in her ageing home in the New England countryside with just her two dogs for company. She keeps her mental cogs going with occasional tutoring in history; Nate, a confused teenager, is the current recipient of her wisdom.Fanning is now in that dangerous mid-life crisis period of his life and having grown up in a poor village, builds his dream house in the posh one up the road where his mother had cleaned houses. Unfortunately it’s next door to Charlotte, and on land that used to belong to her father and she thinks she still owns. He’s now battling on two fronts – home and work, as it’s all going pear-shaped hedging on the Nikkei.We despise Fanning for the mess(es) he gets into, and it’s pity rather than sympathy that he engenders as we gradually find out what makes this hollow man tick. As for young Nate – get a grip man! Charlotte is not an easy woman to like, but we can sympathise with her predicament – a brilliant mind edging into decline - her financial bigwig brother Henry would like to get her into a home, but he is humouring her in her courtcase over the land rights with Fanning:Sauntering drowsily in from the living room, the Doberman rested his head in Charlotte’s lap, and Henry watched his sister pat him gently on the head.“You know it’s funny, ” she said. “All weekend, I’ve tried to convince Wilkie here that you’re a good sport but he won’t believe me, will you Wilkie? He’s convinced you’re a member of the Klan.”As evidenced above, the book is not without humour. Haslett’s style though is very dry and observational, the characters tend to describe rather than feel their own emotions, so you can strongly visualise the scenes; particularly those involving Doug where you’re almost a bystander. I felt that the plot suffered slightly from the interlocking coincidences that coalesce the stories of the characters together, but this is a timely novel, reminding us of how we got to the state we’re now in both at home and abroad. Tuskar Rock Press – Hardback, 304pp. I chose this book from a list supplied by Amazon Vine. (7/10)
    • 4/5
      "Union Atlantic" is a sensitive, engrossing intersection of four lives in the battle for control of a pristine piece of real estate just outside of Boston, where the suburbs give way to what is left of idyllic and bucolic townships. A master-of- the-universe options trader,, a lonely, spinster former school teacher, her brother, who leads with integrity a branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve, a very insecure, manipulated teenage boy and other characters around them are either destroyed, compromised, or damaged by the fight over the property. A few of the characters, even though they either create damage or are damaged, emerge with small gains in their humanity.The amoral options trader at the center of the book could have been pulled from the headlines of the newspapers chronicling the excesses of the 2008-2010 financial crisis. He is villainous, creates ruin at his job, on the McMansion he has built on the disputed property, and particularly against the teenage boy, but he allows himself one small action that likely does not redeem him, but shows that even the most egregious villains may be capable of small gestures of compassion.Reading "Union Atlantic" kept me up all night; the story propels like a market crash.
    • 2/5
      This is a fictional account that takes the reader behind the scenes of intertwined private lives in the midst’s of a banking crisis in 2002 where “too big to fail” is a reoccurring consideration. The private lives followed in this book can be taken as symbols of the cultural forces competing for America’s soul in the aftermath of 9/11. The story that unfolds is filled with ethical and emotional complexities.I found most of the characters developed by this novel to be not likeable. Consequently the book was a bit of a downer for me. The president of the New York Federal Reserve is a somewhat sympathetic character. The following quote from the book gives some of his inner thoughts as he ponders what to do with a large bank that has become the victim of fraudulent speculation in the international financial markets."Truth lay in the aggregate numbers, not in the images of citizens the media alighted upon for a minute or two and then quickly left behind. Currency devaluations created more misery than any corporate criminal ever would. What the populist critics rarely bothered to countenance was the shape of things in the wake of real, systemic collapse."The last time he bailed out a big bank the chairman of the Fed had publicly distanced himself suggesting the market ought to have been left to settle the matter.The following quote is an answer from Henry's colleague to the question, "So what would letting them go look like?”“A bloodbath. They’ve got business in a hundred countries. Counterparties up and down the food chain. They’re ten percent of the municipal bond market. They’ve got more credit cards than Chase. And they’re overweighted in mortgage securities. They’re the definition of systemic risk. And we’re barely out of a recession. It’d be mal-practice to let them fail. You know it as well as I do.” From the above quotes that I've lifted from the book you might get the impression that the book spends a lot of time addressing the moral dilemmas faced in deciding what to do with a failed financial institution. Unfortunately, the book spends most of its time following the private life conflicts and problems of the fictional characters, and the banking crisis is mostly background activity. I was hoping for more emphasis on the inner workings of banking regulators.Also, I don't like novels that include graphic sexual encounters. In this book the encounters are homosexual in nature. It could be argued that in this book the sex scenes are symbolic of other inappropriate business relationships that are part of the plot. I can see that the author has written a well structured plot with several layers of meaning. Nevertheless, I found little to enjoy in this book.
    • 5/5
      Very engaging story about a fictional bank and one of it's players, and his clash with a very excentric iconoclast, Charlotte the retired history teacher. It's a very current subject as the bank players play fast and loose skirting the rules and how the federal reserve looks the other way. Charlotte is a neighbor to the palatial mansion of Doug Fanning the selfish mysogynist, who wants her eyesore of a house removed. Charlotte is a delight and her dogs talk to her in the character of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X.The most poignant moment in the book is when Doug finds himself afoul of the law, he goes to visit his alcoholic mother who he left without a goodbye when he joined the navy years before, and finds her sober and thriving in his old house. He expected to find her still broken down and is rather disappointed to find her living happily.
    • 5/5
      Watching the Congressional hearings into Goldman Sachs made me appreciate the prescience of Adam Haslett's brilliant novel, Union Atlantic.Written in the year before the economic collapse of 2009, Haslett's novel features a young gun investment banker, Doug Fanning, whom we first meet in 1988 when he is stationed on a US naval ship that is escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Straits of Hormuz. Fanning sees an unidentified plane on his radar, and alerts his commander. A decision is made to fire upon the plane and 290 people lost their lives as their Iranian Airbus passenger jet was shot down by the Americans.The incident gets covered up, as well as the fact that Fanning failed to tell his commander that the jet was ascending, not descending as the commander was told. This incident and its aftermath leads Fanning to become the kind of man who later sets in motion a financial disaster that threatens the U.S. banking system.Fanning becomes a big success as an investment banker at Union Atlantic. He takes risks there as well, and as long as he produces big profits for the bank and in turn himself, he can cut all the corners he likes. His boss is willfully ignorant of Fanning's schemes.When Fanning builds a huge McMansion next to property owned by Charlotte Graves, he underestimates her. The land was owned by her grandfather, and Charlotte believes his house is obscene. Charlotte, a retired teacher, is eccentric, slipping into insanity. She believes that her two dogs are the incarnated Malcolm X and Cotton Mather, and they frequently share their conflicting advice with Charlotte.Charlotte ends up tutoring Nate, a teenage boy whose father recently committed suicide. Nate and his mother are barely existing together. He breaks into Fanning's home, and ends up in a dangerous sexual relationship with Fanning. Fanning wants Nate to help get Charlotte off his back, and he is willing to use Nate's vulnerability to get what he wants.When a colleague working for Fanning runs a scheme that unravels, Charlotte brother Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, becomes involved in trying to keep this from ruining the entire entangled U. S. economy. (Hank Paulson, anyone?)How Haslett weaves these stories together is a wonder. He doesn't write this novel, he crafts it. It took me along time to read this book because I frequently reread passages, they were that beautiful. Of Nate realizing that Charlotte needed him, he writesThese last many months the intuition of others' needs had become Nate's second nature, as if his father's going had cut him a pair of new, lidless eyes that couldn't help but see into a person such as this this: marooned and specter-driven.His characters are vivid and complex. Nate is flailing about, wanting to be loved and willing to debase himself to do it. Charlotte is a genius, bordering on insane, and Fanning is amoral, sinking further into the morass.It is astonishing that a fiction writer created this dialogue in 2008, when Henry the NY Fed Chair says to the CEO of Union Atlantic"Let me start by saying that if you or your board is under the impression that Union Atlantic is too big to fail, you're mistaken. There's no question here of a bailout. If you go under, the markets will take a hit, but with enough liquidity in the system we can cut you loose. I hope you understand that." This, of course, was a bluff. Henry has already begun receiving calls from the Treasury Department.This novel is one of the best books I have read this decade. The story is relevant and the characters are powerful. Haslett is a true craftsmen. If you like good fiction, this is a book you must read.
    • 5/5
      This book was so much more than I was led to believe by reviewers. One piece of it involves the acts of Doug Fanning as a banker at Union Atlantic. All the characters are fascinating and tied to together in ways which are not apparent to the characters. The omniscient narrator is what makes this book work. The development of all the characters was wonderful. I found myself thinking about why or if I sympathize with any of them. Certainly Nate and Charlotte and Henry Graves. They all made an impact on me and I found myself thinking about them when I wasn't listening. It seemed that the common thread among each of them was a sense of isolation, often self imposed. Doug Fanning was the most enigmatic. He was obviously angry and had a chip on his shoulder, although I'm not sure why. Another mystery was who was his father. He moved decisively in almost everything he did but without any purpose other than to benefit himself - keep himself from blame, not sure. Charlotte and Henry each has a strong moral compass but had gone in very different directions. Charlottes' dogs Wilkie and Sam were a fascinating narrative device - I think that aspect of the book benefited tremendously in an audio. Nate was just an innocent. I wonder about the image at the of the book of Doug's mother and Nate - real or imagined? It was just wonderful example of literary fiction and so much more than a story about finance.
    • 5/5
      Adam Haslett is one of a group of talented writers (Jonathan Dee, Michael Mewshaw, Dan Chaon) describing turn of the century social and personal dilemmas in their novels. The novelty of the books is not in the themes explored; they appear in fiction at the beginning of each century. Themes involving social responsibility, personal accountability, the rule of law, ethics, insight, and absolute/relative truth have been explored by many great authors(e.g., Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain). It is the interpretation of time in its current context, how it is structured and understood by societies and individuals, that make these contemporary authors stand out now. Union Atlantic is an exciting story of high finance with well-developed and interesting characters who try to make sense of the times they are in and gain insight into their own psychological development. The action is centered on the activities of a New York bank that grew as a traditional money lending institution in the volatile economy of the first decade of the 21st Century. As a result of aggressive financial tactics, at first within the letter of the law, Union Atlantic distanced itself from tradition and became a leader in international trading. The novel concerns the consequences of the separation of traditional ethics and current banking practices, the rejection of historical rules and the establishment of risky procedures justified by present opportunities. The characters are affected by their social history and current events in a similar way in the post 9/11 world. Nate associates with economically advantaged teenage peers who are largely ignorant of history. The focus of his life involves trying to understand his emerging personal desires without the historical context of abiding moral standards. Doug, at 37, is the chief high stakes organizer at Union Atlantic. He was educated in traditional business practices, but understands his personal responsibility on a short term basis, as if old standards are irrelevant in the current financial climate. Charlotte, a retired high school history teacher, understands the connection between American history and her own life path. She sees a common pattern in the apparent chaos of both time lines, rejecting her comfortable solitude after realizing her inner life is only one part of her story. The integrity of the bank depends on public trust and the parallel integrity of the characters depends personal trust. The bank can stay in business if the public has faith in the long term propriety of its transactions. The current context allows for some violation of this standard as long as the current activities show a profit. The characters can live with themselves as long as they have faith in the long term propriety of love. The current context allows for some violation of this standard as long as immediate needs are met. The problem with both violations is that the phrase, `as long as,' in the novel is short term. The real dilemma for Union Atlantic and the characters is the integration of lessons of the past with actions in present circumstances. I strongly recommend Adam Haslett's novel, Union Atlantic to readers who like an exciting story and insightful character development. I predict that the themes will be repeated in a new context by novelists in the first decade of the 22nd Century.