Present Value: Summary and book reviews of Present Value by Sabin Willett, plus links to an excerpt from Present Value and a biography of Sabin Willett.
Present Value
by Sabin Willett
Hardcover: Sep 2003,
416 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2004,
416 pages.
Fritz Brubaker and his wife, Linda - an attractive couple in their mid-forties - have it all. He’s a toy-company executive and she’s a million-dollar-a-year lawyer. Their children are in private school; they have a McMansion in a Boston suburb and a cottage on Nantucket. But their comfortable world is suddenly turned upside down when Fritz’s company’s stock tanks and he is arrested for insider trading. Linda’s image-conscious firm suspends her. Their houses get repossessed. The kids go haywire. Watching the Brubaker family’s lives unravel is the best way to see the stuff from which they’re really made.
This clever, very funny novel is a post-millennial snapshot of America that shows what happens to an economy built on greed when its chickens come home to roost. It’s the story of a family gone wrong, and its attempt to reset its course.
The author of two successful thrillers, Sabin Willett delivers in this ambitious new novel the kind of witty social commentary we associate with Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Franzen, and Zadie Smith. But he writes in his own original voice, breaking new ground as he describes a changed world. Present Value is a provocative, wonderfully entertaining ride—an irreverent, clear-eyed view of the way we live now.
Booklist - Carol Haggas
A contemporary satire of the highest order, it delivers its message with both uproarious humor and uplifting pathos.
Publishers Weekly
... a clever sendup of striving citizens, and in the end, a morality tale, as the man who thinks he's lost everything discovers that perhaps he's won.
Library Journal - Sheila Riley
Highly amusing and irreverent, though at times a tad overwritten, this is a swift, good read and highly recommended for all fiction collections.
Kirkus Reviews
Remarkable hilariously nasty, morally driven, sweetly romantic. Poor Linda Fritz is irresistible.
Mario Cuomo Present Value is a really good story…and much more. It’s a trove of useful information about the law, the economy, and Wall Street, with intriguing insights into some of the flimsy threads of today’s culture and the sturdier values that can redeem it. Willett’s intelligence, sense of humor and craftsmanship are even more impressive.
Ken Auletta
Out of nowhere, this novel grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go until I finished. It takes you into boardrooms and bedrooms, it explores the post-9/11 psyche, the culture of business, pokes below the surface of a perfect marriage, and provides a comic description of the noisome Blackberry culture that leaves us staring at the tops of people's heads. Sabin Willett has the eye of a fine satirist, and the fluid writing style of a Tom Wolfe.
Kurt Andersen, author of Turn of the Century
If you love to hate lawyers, psychotherapists, political correctness, suburban oppressiveness, Blackberrys, CEOs, and/or CFOs; if you have a taste for tales of corporate intrigue told from the inside out; or if you enjoy dead-on 21st century comedies of manners, then Present Value is your book.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Sactown Ernie Excellent Given the fact that a college education is increasingly geared toward job preparation and placement, "Present Value" should be required reading for all students in Business and Law School. Willett skillfully weaves a tale of moral... Read More
Rated of 5
by Lee
I loved this book (Present Value, Sabin Willett). It came out of the blue, and I ended up staying up late two nights in a row and getting to work late two days in a row as I just had to read more in the morning. I've not bumped into this author... Read More
Female Intelligence is a hilarious look at our inability to bridge the communication gap between men and women, despite all the Mars/Venus books on the market.
These are 2 of the 5 readalike suggestions for Present Value. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Two Lives is a memoir written by international best-selling author, Vikram Seth. In this interesting and engaging book, Seth writes about his great...
read more
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
Booklist - Carol Haggas
Mario Cuomo
of 5
by Sactown Ernie
Write your own review!
