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Kapitoil (P.S.)

by Teddy Wayne

Kapitoil (P.S.) Cover

ISBN13: 9780061873218
ISBN10: 0061873217
All Product Details

 

Awards

The Rooster 2011 Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"Sometimes you do not truly observe something until you study it in reverse," writes Karim Issar upon arrival to New York City from Qatar in 1999. Fluent in numbers, logic, and business jargon yet often baffled by human connection, the young financial wizard soon creates a computer program named Kapitoil that predicts oil futures and reaps record profits for his company.

At first an introspective loner adrift in New York's social scenes, he anchors himself to his legendary boss Derek Schrub and Rebecca, a sensitive, disillusioned colleague who may understand him better than he does himself. Her influence, and his father's disapproval of Karim's Americanization, cause him to question the moral implications of Kapitoil, moving him toward a decision that will determine his future, his firm's, and to whom—and where—his loyalties lie.

Review:

"Magazine writer Wayne's strong and heartfelt debut novel, set in New York City in the months leading up to the millennium, follows Karim Issar as he leaves his home and family in Qatar for a programming job at a Wall Street firm preparing for the Y2K bug. On the side, the very socially maladapted programming genius creates Kapitoil, a morally troubling computer program that allows his company to make a killing by modeling oil futures based on political instability. Meanwhile, a romance simmers with Rebecca, Karim's colleague and his guide to American culture. Ultimately, Karim must make a choice about his and his family's financial security and Kapitoil's potential for (perhaps) doing good in the world. Wayne zips through a minefield of potential clichs and comes out unscathed, striking a balance of humor and keen insight that propels the story through Karim's education about the West's ethics and its capitalism, while in the background the World Trade Center looms. It's a slick first novel that beautifully captures a time that, in retrospect, seems tragically nave." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

Sometimes you do not truly observe something until you study it in reverse, writes Karim Issar upon arrival to New York City from Qatar in 1999. Fluent in numbers, logic, and business jargon yet often baffled by human connection, the young financial wizard soon creates a computer program named Kapitoil that predicts oil futures and reaps record profits for his company.

At first an introspective loner adrift in New York's social scenes, he anchors himself to his legendary boss Derek Schrub and Rebecca, a sensitive, disillusioned colleague who may understand him better than he does himself. Her influence, and his father's disapproval of Karim's Americanization, cause him to question the moral implications of Kapitoil, moving him toward a decision that will determine his future, his firm's, and to whom--and where--his loyalties lie.

About the Author

Teddy Wayne is a graduate of Harvard and Washington University in St. Louis. He is the the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, Esquire, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. He lives in New York.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:

Egg_salad, June 11, 2011 (view all comments by Egg_salad)
Kapitoil was a quick and easy read about a very rational finance quant from the Middle East who comes to New York to work at a brokerage on the Y2K bug in 1999. He happens upon a novel idea to predict oil futures and all of a sudden he is succeeding in business without really trying. It's a first person narrative, and I could see how some could be turned off by the extremely logical thought process of the protagonist, but I found it engaging. For me, it was difficult to put down for the day or two it took to finish.
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August Melmotte, April 29, 2011 (view all comments by August Melmotte)
It is appropriate that this novel is set around a non-event, Y2K, as it is itself a non-event. Nothing happens, at least nothing that isn't a well worn cliche of the wide-eyed new arrival in the big city trope. The narrative conceits of the book (Issar's stilted language, the voice recorder, the journal format with appended definitions) all come to naught. The themes and characters are conventional and the story lacks anything that approaches an original insight about New York City or the people who live there. On the whole it falls into a class of novel, not uncommon in my experience, that is either purposefully or unwittingly written with the hope of being optioned for screen adaptation. That isn't to say there's anything cinematic about Kapitoil, but it feels more like a movie treatment, as replete for opportunity for visual cliche as it is lacking in any particular literary substance. On the plus side, if you insist, it won't take you very long to skim through. I'm chalking this one up as a victory for e-books. I don't have to figure out what to do with the paperback now.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061873218
Author:
Wayne, Teddy
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Author:
Motyka, Elizabeth
Author:
Mead, M. Nathaniel
Author:
Motyka, Tom
Subject:
Mathematicians
Subject:
Wall street (new york, n.y.)
Subject:
General
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
General Health & Fitness
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Edition Description:
Trade PB
Series:
P.S.
Publication Date:
20100431
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
320
Dimensions:
6.5 x 9.75 in 32.00 oz

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Kapitoil (P.S.) New Trade Paper
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Product details 320 pages Harper Perennial - English 9780061873218 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Magazine writer Wayne's strong and heartfelt debut novel, set in New York City in the months leading up to the millennium, follows Karim Issar as he leaves his home and family in Qatar for a programming job at a Wall Street firm preparing for the Y2K bug. On the side, the very socially maladapted programming genius creates Kapitoil, a morally troubling computer program that allows his company to make a killing by modeling oil futures based on political instability. Meanwhile, a romance simmers with Rebecca, Karim's colleague and his guide to American culture. Ultimately, Karim must make a choice about his and his family's financial security and Kapitoil's potential for (perhaps) doing good in the world. Wayne zips through a minefield of potential clichs and comes out unscathed, striking a balance of humor and keen insight that propels the story through Karim's education about the West's ethics and its capitalism, while in the background the World Trade Center looms. It's a slick first novel that beautifully captures a time that, in retrospect, seems tragically nave." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis" by , Sometimes you do not truly observe something until you study it in reverse, writes Karim Issar upon arrival to New York City from Qatar in 1999. Fluent in numbers, logic, and business jargon yet often baffled by human connection, the young financial wizard soon creates a computer program named Kapitoil that predicts oil futures and reaps record profits for his company.

At first an introspective loner adrift in New York's social scenes, he anchors himself to his legendary boss Derek Schrub and Rebecca, a sensitive, disillusioned colleague who may understand him better than he does himself. Her influence, and his father's disapproval of Karim's Americanization, cause him to question the moral implications of Kapitoil, moving him toward a decision that will determine his future, his firm's, and to whom--and where--his loyalties lie.

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