Novel that steps into financial ‘charmed circle’

Other People’s Money, a character-driven tale which tells of the near collapse and subsequent rescue of a blue-blooded bank in the City of London, might contain some comic moments, but it also damns the financial sector as a “rotten, crumbling industry resting on greed and half-truths”.

The dozen or so eminent investment bankers who provided advice – who he does not name – weren’t upset though. Instead, they seemed to like the book.

“Maybe they were expecting something a bit harsher,” said Mr Cartwright.

Michael Lewis, the American business writer, experienced a similar reaction to his seminal 1980s Wall Street expose Liar’s Poker when new recruits to the industry used it as a how-to manual.

In fact, one of Mr Cartwright’s banking sources bought 100 copies of the book to give to his friends, unfazed by its unflattering portrayal of high financiers brought low by sub-prime bets gone bad.

The reaction is not surprising, according to the Booker-shortlisted author.

“People in banking and finance believe that they are part of a charmed circle which understands the inner workings of the world,” he said, in an interview with the Yorkshire Post.

“They don’t necessarily have contempt for people who do other things, but in their heart of hearts they believe that they are doing the important stuff, the stuff that makes the world go round, and the rest of us are fiddling at the edges, probably doing something wilfully frivolous.

“In fact they need to believe that banking in particular is far more complex than it appears to the outsider. And so they perpetuate the myth that they are particularly talented, hard working, and the citizens of the real world.”

Mr Cartwright, 65, started thinking about writing a book on the subject in 2008, the year of the financial meltdown. He said: “It struck me that state-of-the-nation novels are always good when there’s a bit of crisis going on.”

He had a grasp of the workings of the financial markets following his 1990 novel, Look at it This Way, but needed to learn more, particularly about the kind of instruments that creators believed had “more or less taken risk out of investing”.

He resisted the temptation to paint bankers as “irredeemable villains and idiots” – unlike Charles Dickens, he said, who described the financiers of his time as “sleek, slobbery, bow-paunched, overfed, apoplectic, snorting cattle” – when most actors in the industry were victims of “a general delusion”.

“As long as the money was rolling in, people did not question how it was happening and question the assumptions behind it,” Mr Cartwright said.

Unlike many commentators, he does not seek retribution. Instead, he is philosophical about the roots of the crisis, believing that “people are no more rational today than they were 2,000 years ago”.

The author believes in “fictional truth” and while there are many non-fiction books about the financial crisis offering detailed accounts of who sold what to whom and whether the customer really understood what they were buying, Mr Cartwright claimed “they don’t really tell you what the human motives are” or delve into psychology. “That’s what novels can do,” he said.

The book was 18 months in the making. Published in March, it has since sold around 20,000 copies and has been described as the “first feel-good book about the financial crisis”, probably because of its Hollywood-style ending. Mr Cartwright said it has been optioned and could soon become a TV mini-series. It is due out in mass-market paperback next year.

As the UK economy slowly returns to growth, Mr Cartwright is undecided about the role of financial services and finds it hard to ascribe value to a sector when there is no visible “industry” as such.

He said: “We do have a highly developed and extremely skilled financial industry and have done for a number of years. Somebody suggested we should be digging things up or metal bashing.

“My father in law was chief executive of a company in Lancashire which made pumps. I realised when I first met him that there was an enormous gulf between the effete south and people making things up north. He always had a chip on his shoulder about that sort of thing.”

THE POWER OF THE WORD

* THE best state-of-the-nation novels tend to linger long after publication, said Justin Cartwright, who offered Middlemarch and Bonfire of the Vanities as good examples.

* He said there had been a couple of efforts involving the recent financial crisis, but they weren’t very good, although he diplomatically declined to name names.

* Mr Cartwright explained: “I felt they became enmeshed in the finance to the detriment of the characters. Novels only work if you care about the characters.”

* The book has recently been shortlisted in the Spear’s Book Awards. The winner will be announced in June.