Money buys watches, not happiness

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 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 Streets 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.