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RomperSuit
The first rule of Investment Banking is ... you do not talk about Investment Banking.
How do you continue to put in the hours, throw the punches and land the kicks in the Square Mile when your heart has long since left for your life in leafy suburbia? When your heart has long since left for your wife and your two soppy toy dogs?
When you’re a success amongst the big earners, a face acknowledged and head-hunted (quite literally) by rival City firms, leaving the Square Mile behind is never as straightforward as you might hope. Your true colours aren’t just nailed to the mast; they’re tailored into the lining of your Savile Row suits.
RomperSuit charts Charlie Campbell-Fuller’s journey through the corporate world of City boys pushing up stock prices and trading slaps, big risks taken and savage thrashings dealt out for even bigger rewards. But the beat of batons on riot shields has started to follow Charlie back home to suburban summer barbecues, even stalks him at the fertility clinic and threatens his friendships and marriage alike.
As the two halves of Charlie’s life collide, will City life (and death) succeed in a hostile takeover? With split loyalties, multiple deceptions and sharp-suited violence reaching a crescendo – what will be the ultimate price for that year-end bonus?
How do you continue to put in the hours, throw the punches and land the kicks in the Square Mile when your heart has long since left for your life in leafy suburbia? When your heart has long since left for your wife and your two soppy toy dogs?
When you’re a success amongst the big earners, a face acknowledged and head-hunted (quite literally) by rival City firms, leaving the Square Mile behind is never as straightforward as you might hope. Your true colours aren’t just nailed to the mast; they’re tailored into the lining of your Savile Row suits.
RomperSuit charts Charlie Campbell-Fuller’s journey through the corporate world of City boys pushing up stock prices and trading slaps, big risks taken and savage thrashings dealt out for even bigger rewards. But the beat of batons on riot shields has started to follow Charlie back home to suburban summer barbecues, even stalks him at the fertility clinic and threatens his friendships and marriage alike.
As the two halves of Charlie’s life collide, will City life (and death) succeed in a hostile takeover? With split loyalties, multiple deceptions and sharp-suited violence reaching a crescendo – what will be the ultimate price for that year-end bonus?
Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2013
16 people want to read
About the author
Allen Jarvis
3 books5 followersCity boy who now lives in suburbia. Jarvis desperately misses actually living in the City but at least now has 3hrs 'me time' on trains each day to read/write (i.e. sleep).
Jarvis had a novel (e-males) published many moons ago then sat on his laurels and basically did other things with his life (none of which were constructive). Now he's having a stab at this self-publication malarkey. He is always fashionably late to the party.
Jarvis owns way too many coats (for a bloke).
Jarvis had a novel (e-males) published many moons ago then sat on his laurels and basically did other things with his life (none of which were constructive). Now he's having a stab at this self-publication malarkey. He is always fashionably late to the party.
Jarvis owns way too many coats (for a bloke).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 17, 2013
Dark, humorous, clever, shocking, twisting reality, worth a read if you're serious about searching out contemporary fiction that packs a punch!
April 12, 2014
This book sounded like an interesting yarn. Take someone like Sherman McCoy, the self-designated "Master of the Universe" and arrogant investment banker of the Tom Wolfe classic "The Bonfire of the Vanities," and put him in a gang warfare story like The Outsiders or the film West Side Story. And it's in London, England, the financial capital of Europe.
Ultimately though, with all its local dialect and name-dropping, such as discussions of local football (soccer here in Canada and America) teams, London bank and street names, investment banking terms and history, this book doesn't feel inviting to me. I understand if the dialogue is local, but the prose is also all local. It feels like only an investment banker who actually works in London would get through this book with ease.
One puzzling aspect of this book is the notion that investment banker firms are so driven by loyalty to the team that they engage in street warfare. I wasn't sure if that was actually intended to be reality in the story or imagined in the mind of Charlie, the narrator of the story. But seeing how Charlie's wife reacted to his injuries at the end of the book, I think such gang warfare must have intended to be real. Then the question arises of why a group of wealthy people who work long hours would be interested in gang warfare. Ultimately, though, I moved on, deciding the book must be satire and intended to convey investment banking as a brutal business, even if not physically harmful, through their antics.
I really liked the friendship of the trio of guys who bonded together long before the story started, and continued to do so. The sexual hijinks added some spice to the story.
The author writes really well. I think I would enjoy the book much better if he made it much more accessible to the reader, and saved the strong jargon for the dialogue only. There is a purpose to "dumbing down" - investment banking in London is something that needs to be conveyed to the reader in a way that makes him feel part of it.
Again, since the author has a knack for story-telling, I see great things for this author in the future.
Ultimately though, with all its local dialect and name-dropping, such as discussions of local football (soccer here in Canada and America) teams, London bank and street names, investment banking terms and history, this book doesn't feel inviting to me. I understand if the dialogue is local, but the prose is also all local. It feels like only an investment banker who actually works in London would get through this book with ease.
One puzzling aspect of this book is the notion that investment banker firms are so driven by loyalty to the team that they engage in street warfare. I wasn't sure if that was actually intended to be reality in the story or imagined in the mind of Charlie, the narrator of the story. But seeing how Charlie's wife reacted to his injuries at the end of the book, I think such gang warfare must have intended to be real. Then the question arises of why a group of wealthy people who work long hours would be interested in gang warfare. Ultimately, though, I moved on, deciding the book must be satire and intended to convey investment banking as a brutal business, even if not physically harmful, through their antics.
I really liked the friendship of the trio of guys who bonded together long before the story started, and continued to do so. The sexual hijinks added some spice to the story.
The author writes really well. I think I would enjoy the book much better if he made it much more accessible to the reader, and saved the strong jargon for the dialogue only. There is a purpose to "dumbing down" - investment banking in London is something that needs to be conveyed to the reader in a way that makes him feel part of it.
Again, since the author has a knack for story-telling, I see great things for this author in the future.
March 10, 2014
This is a novel about couples slowing and settling in London's suburbia and yet fighting the urge to settle and slow in suburbia. It’s about friendships and marriages and about trying for children.
But there's a twist in Rompersuit’s tail - this is also a novel about gang warfare on a nonsensical scale. Packs of sharp-suited bankers fighting rival bankers on the streets of the City of London. This is a world of lager, sex, pubs, drugs and fighting - a world that is violent and pitiless yet uplifting, joyous, funny and earnest at the same time. This is a novel about real people and their struggle to make a living and their challenges to make something of themselves but all the time snatching every ounce of happiness out of life no matter what happens to them.
Jarvis writes with breath-taking ferocity - his words are entertaining, funny, discerning and observant. His characters are finely drawn, precise portraits of people existing in modern urban life and his dialogue is always right on the mark. Brutal and unique.
But there's a twist in Rompersuit’s tail - this is also a novel about gang warfare on a nonsensical scale. Packs of sharp-suited bankers fighting rival bankers on the streets of the City of London. This is a world of lager, sex, pubs, drugs and fighting - a world that is violent and pitiless yet uplifting, joyous, funny and earnest at the same time. This is a novel about real people and their struggle to make a living and their challenges to make something of themselves but all the time snatching every ounce of happiness out of life no matter what happens to them.
Jarvis writes with breath-taking ferocity - his words are entertaining, funny, discerning and observant. His characters are finely drawn, precise portraits of people existing in modern urban life and his dialogue is always right on the mark. Brutal and unique.
July 22, 2016
Every once in a while I come across a book that has such amazing writing, the story really takes second place for me. This book is one of those. It's a rare treat to find an author who has such an amazing gift for storytelling as this author does.
You can read all the reviews, they focus on the story, and that is great because it is a great story, but the writing is just so wonderful, I feel like I really need to point that out.
Now, the book was interesting, it was about a world I was not familiar with at all, and the author managed to put me right there in the thick of it with the characters. I particularly liked the bond of friendship that was conveyed between the men, their friendship continued throughout, and it really added a lot to the story.
The character development is wonderful, the storyline flows effortlessly, and the writing is done so well, as I said, that you keep turning page after page without thought to other things you need to accomplish! Watch out for this author... he's going places!
I highly recommend!
You can read all the reviews, they focus on the story, and that is great because it is a great story, but the writing is just so wonderful, I feel like I really need to point that out.
Now, the book was interesting, it was about a world I was not familiar with at all, and the author managed to put me right there in the thick of it with the characters. I particularly liked the bond of friendship that was conveyed between the men, their friendship continued throughout, and it really added a lot to the story.
The character development is wonderful, the storyline flows effortlessly, and the writing is done so well, as I said, that you keep turning page after page without thought to other things you need to accomplish! Watch out for this author... he's going places!
I highly recommend!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews