The Vegan
A Novel
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Named a Must-Read Book of 2023 by TIME and ELLE
Named a New York Times Critics' Pick of 2023
A most anticipated book from The New York Times • Vanity Fair • ELLE • Town & Country • Shondaland • i-D • Lit Hub & more
In The Vegan, Andrew Lipstein challenges our notions of virtue with a brilliant tale of guilt, greed, and how far we’ll go to be good.
Herschel Caine is a soon-to-be master of the universe. His hedge fund, built on the miracle of machine learning, is inches away from systematically extracting obscene profits from the market. His SoHo offices (shoes optional, therapy required) have been fine-tuned to reel in curious investors.
But on the night of May 12, at his elegant Cobble Hill townhouse, he has something else on his mind—the dinner party he and his wife have devised to woo their new A-list neighbors. When the evening fizzles, Herschel indulges in a devilish prank that goes horrifically awry, plunging him into a tailspin of guilt and regret. As Herschel’s tightly constructed world starts to unravel, he clings to the moral clarity he finds in the last place he’d expect: a sudden connection with a neighborhood dog.
A wildly inventive, reality-bending trip, The Vegan holds a mirror up to its reader and poses a question only a hedge fund manager could ask: Is purity a convertible asset? The more Herschel disavows his original sin, and the more it threatens to be revealed, the more it becomes something else entirely—a way into a forgotten world of animals, nature, and life beyond words.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Having probed the ethics of fiction writing in Last Resort, Lipstein turns to another industry known for its occasionally elastic principles—high finance—in this engrossing portrait of a hedge fund manager. Narrator Herschel Caine is trying to establish a quantitative fund with the potential to "upend the very definitions of public stocks, investing, money itself." To do so, he needs a large commitment from an investor whose shady representative wants access to the firm's proprietary algorithm and is willing to deploy increasingly aggressive means to obtain it. Before the deal is resolved, domestic trouble ensues when Herschel and his wife, Franny, host their neighbors the Guggenheims for dinner but, the boisterous behavior of another guest threatens to spoil the evening. Herschel devises an underhanded solution to save the party, which leads to a serious accident. Against a Succession-level aftermath of corporate skullduggery and personal guilt, Herschel has a moral crisis; he grows horrified by the vast power of his firm's algorithm, argues that art should have a social purpose, and becomes a vegan. As his worldview changes, language becomes alien to him: "Words and logic could not help me describe myself." Though the denouement is a little rushed, there's genuine suspense in Lipstein's meaty novel of ideas. This is well worth the investment.
