The Umbrella Men by Keith Carter - Book Tour + Giveaway
The Umbrella Men
by Keith Carter
Genre:
Contemporary Fiction
Contemporary Fiction
A witty and acerbic novel for our times about corporate greed, the
hubris of bankers, contradictions of the clean energy economy and
their unintended consequences on everyday people.
hubris of bankers, contradictions of the clean energy economy and
their unintended consequences on everyday people.
Finance, environmentalism, rare-earth mining and human frailties collide in a
complex of flawed motives. We follow Peter Mount, the self-made Chief
Executive of a London-based rare-earth mining company as he and his
business are buffeted by crisis-torn Royal Bank of Scotland and by
his own actions, real and imagined. Meanwhile in Oregon, Amy Tate and
her group of local environmental activists do their contradictory
part to undermine a component of the green economy, unwittingly
super-charged by the Chinese state. The repercussions of events in
pristine Oregon are felt in the corporate and financial corridors of
New York and London with drastic consequences. This is a deeply
involving novel about the current workings of capitalism,
miscommunication, causes and unexpected effects, love and survival.
complex of flawed motives. We follow Peter Mount, the self-made Chief
Executive of a London-based rare-earth mining company as he and his
business are buffeted by crisis-torn Royal Bank of Scotland and by
his own actions, real and imagined. Meanwhile in Oregon, Amy Tate and
her group of local environmental activists do their contradictory
part to undermine a component of the green economy, unwittingly
super-charged by the Chinese state. The repercussions of events in
pristine Oregon are felt in the corporate and financial corridors of
New York and London with drastic consequences. This is a deeply
involving novel about the current workings of capitalism,
miscommunication, causes and unexpected effects, love and survival.
Jolene’s Apartment, Mount Hood, Oregon,
August 2008
Jolene heard them on the stairs, stamping
their nasty booted feet as they laboured up, foreclosure papers in hand. She
knew they would come, these heavy, mean men, red-faced and breathless from the
three flights to her front door. She had received enough threatening letters,
horrid impersonal things signed by a computer, warning her of the consequences
if she remained in default, calling her “delinquent”. She had looked it up. She
was not a delinquent, she wanted to pay, but how could she when the bank was
asking for $1,100 a month and her gross take-home pay, even in a good month
when tips were plentiful, amounted to less than $1,300? She wanted to pay, she
wanted to keep her apartment, her furniture, her independent life. Her dream.
She had tried calling Brad, but he never
answered his cellphone and the woman at the number on his card seemed unable to
decide whether Brad had been promoted out of the area or Millennium had gone
out of business. Or both. Jolene had always known, deep down, that as soon as
her mortgage was arranged Brad would be back out of her life again, and so it
had been. She had always known, but still it was another disappointment added
to the accumulating catalogue of disappointments that weighed down her spirit
and subtracted from her previously sunny disposition. She sadly concluded that
Brad saw her only as a piece of business like any other. Stupid of her to dream
anything else. Stupid.
But she remembered his reassuring words in
answer to her worries about what would happen once the two-year “introductory
period” was over. He was so convincing, so clever. He always had been. Surely
he would not let her down, he would help her now that they were threatening to
come to her apartment and evict her, warning her she should not attempt to
detach any fixtures or fitments, “properly the property of the mortgagee”? She
looked that up too. It was the bank, although she did not recognise its name at
the head of the threatening letter. Did they mean that she could not unscrew
the scales from the kitchen wall? Her mom had given her those as a housewarming
present, visiting soon after she moved in, her dad proudly closing the front
door with a flourish saying, “Who would have thought it, our little Jolene, a
place of her own! Man, ya gotta love America.”
Brad did let her down though. He was gone.
He had sold his house, fearfully cashing in when prices looked like they were
softening. Unlike Jolene, Brad got out at a nice profit, before his own
mortgage exceeded the declining value of the house. As the red-faced, heavy,
out-of-breath men with their foreclosure papers were banging angrily on
Jolene’s Oregon door, Brad was sitting on his father-in-law’s sunlit Florida
porch drinking beer and telling his teenaged brother-in-law how he had become a
dollar millionaire before he was 30, had made the most of it whilst the party
lasted.
Jolene had been sold a dream and it was
beyond her means. She was not a delinquent, she wanted to pay. But she
couldn’t. Not in money. She paid in shame, in bitter tears, in sleepless
nights. She paid in stress, in worry. She paid a heavy price but it was not enough
for them. The mean, meaty red-faced men evicted her.
Her failed mortgage joined the stream down
the river network to the reservoirs of Wall Street, where her delinquency
mingled with thousands more, apparently surprising all sorts of people even cleverer
than Brad.
Keith Iain Carter was born in Scotland in March 1959, second son of Marian
van Westendorp and Ralph Carter. He attended a variety of bog
standard state schools in northern England and in 1978 went up to
Cambridge to read Economics, taking a First in 1981 when he was
elected a Scholar – too late to enjoy the privilege of walking on the grass.
van Westendorp and Ralph Carter. He attended a variety of bog
standard state schools in northern England and in 1978 went up to
Cambridge to read Economics, taking a First in 1981 when he was
elected a Scholar – too late to enjoy the privilege of walking on the grass.
Other than corporate annual reports, he has not previously been published,
unless you count a letter printed in Business Week deploring the
widespread use of the word ‘wannabe’ and this quote in Investors
Chronicle: “I used to be a banker, then I went straight”.
unless you count a letter printed in Business Week deploring the
widespread use of the word ‘wannabe’ and this quote in Investors
Chronicle: “I used to be a banker, then I went straight”.
As an investment banker Keith worked for three now-disgraced
institutions - he denies that any causation is associated with this
correlation - Lloyds, Drexel Burnham Lambert and NatWest (RBS). A
corporate financier, he ended up by specialising in pharmaceuticals
and, in 1998, was part of a team acquiring a small vaccine business
from GSK. As CEO he took the company public in 2004. Since 2010
Keith has worked as a business consultant to healthcare companies and
as a writer, which he prefers.
institutions - he denies that any causation is associated with this
correlation - Lloyds, Drexel Burnham Lambert and NatWest (RBS). A
corporate financier, he ended up by specialising in pharmaceuticals
and, in 1998, was part of a team acquiring a small vaccine business
from GSK. As CEO he took the company public in 2004. Since 2010
Keith has worked as a business consultant to healthcare companies and
as a writer, which he prefers.
Keith lives in London, Yorkshire and aboard a boat currently in Greece. He
is a French-speaking Europhile who also loves America, travel,
politics and economics, reading and writing, music, sailing of all
kinds and food and drink.
is a French-speaking Europhile who also loves America, travel,
politics and economics, reading and writing, music, sailing of all
kinds and food and drink.
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