It's a rich man's world? (Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile - Geraint Anderson)

Member Name: ms_memory

Product:	Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile - Geraint Anderson
Date:	01/12/08 (279 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, original, outrageous behind-the-scenes look at the UK financial sector

Disadvantages: Seems as though it was dashed off with little attention to detail; goes off at tangents

I wasn't familiar with Geraint Anderson's anonymous 'Cityboy' column from thelondonpaper. But when someone at work recommended a book about an amazingly successful, stinking-rich analyst at a City bank who gave it all up for, well, nothing, I couldn't help but be a little intrigued. What on earth would make someone renounce such a stellar career? What was so awful about the world of investment banking that he would feel the need to write a no-holds-barred exposé of it? What really goes on at investment banks? I can't deny that I was driven by a mixture of schadenfreude and the prospect of salacious tales about fast cars, huge bonuses and easy women... and I wasn't disappointed on that count.

Cityboy starts out as twenty-something left-wing hippy drifter who, having done a Master's in politics and bummed around India for a while doing drugs and raving, decides it's time he settled down and got a proper job. The next thing you know he's walked into a utilities analyst job at a big City bank thanks to a lot of nepotism and a little luck. Nice work if you can get it! Despite knowing next to nothing about the utilities sector, Cityboy manages to climb the career ladder pretty quickly and land contracts at bigger and better banks by exploiting his love of partying. His tactics are fairly simple: he specialises in client entertainment i.e. taking people out to the most exclusive concerts, clubs, bars, festivals, sporting events etc. Of course, many of these nights out involve copious amounts of drink and drugs. Having seen them at their most inebriated, our hero is able to gain his clients' loyalty and thus their votes in the annual industry awards. And his career continues in this vein for several years, his sole aim being to beat Hugo, an analyst from another bank with whom he has a running feud - not to mention a £100,000 bet.

It doesn't take long before Cityboy is earning enough to swap his £6 suit for a bespoke Ozwald Boateng number and trade in his clapped-out old banger for a Porsche. Hundred-pound bottles of champagne and six-figure bonuses soon become the norm. Cityboy is rolling in cash. But is he happy? After a few years in the City he's a cocaine addict and borderline alcoholic and his one true love and most of his real friends have disowned him. Undeterred, he will stop at nothing until his team beats Hugo's. He is only able to see the light and see the City for what it really is after he has reached rock bottom...

This is a fast-paced, genuinely humorous and in parts shocking book, which draws the reader into the murky world of City banks and the even murkier depths of their employees' extra-curricular activities. It is written in a very informal, almost chatty register, which makes it an entertaining and relaxing read. Citations from pop culture as well as classical literature and thought add an extra layer of interest and reflect Anderson's background as a historian.

Unfortunately this style sometimes seems a little forced and too clever for its own good, which makes it grate after a while. The author also has a tendency to go off on tangents and e.g. rant about the evils of capitalism or suddenly veer away from the story and spend 20 pages explaining how hedge funds operate or stock markets work (or don't work!). This can make the book extremely frustrating at times. It could have done with better editing and should perhaps have been divided into more chapters or sections to separate the dry, factual explanations from the main body of the story. What's more, the book also contains many factual errors - such as mixed metaphors, inaccurate quotes, incorrect use of grammar and inconsistencies in the plot. It looks as though the book was rushed out for publication and not proof-read as thoroughly as it should have been. This is indeed confirmed in the epilogue, where we learn that Anderson wrote the entire text in a couple of months while recovering in India from the stresses of his City career. These mistakes may seem like a small point to some, but they can be distracting and ruin the reader's enjoyment of the book. One of the benefits of writing the book quickly, however, is that it is very up-to-date concerning the US sub-prime crisis and the credit crunch - Anderson is probably thanking his lucky stars that he got out of the financial services sector when he he did.

In summary, Cityboy is a mildly shocking tale about an unlikeable, self-obsessed, bitter man prone to diatribes and long-windedness, but it's funny, original and entertaining. Anderson goes to great pains to assure the reader that Cityboy is a fictional character based on a combination of different people he met throughout his career, but he's not fooling anybody: in the epilogue he assures his mum, dad and any other family members reading that all the sex and drugs was invented, honest guv! But bearing in mind that this book can be found in the biography/autobiography sections of bookshops, you can draw your own conclusions!

Summary: Amusing, fast-paced exposé of life as a City banker