The Darlings
Cristina Alger, 2012
Penguin Group USA
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143122753
Summary
Since he married Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to all the luxuries of Park Avenue. But a tragic event is about to catapult the Darling family into the middle of a massive financial investigation and a red-hot scandal. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties really lie.
Debut novelist Cristina Alger is a former analyst at Goldman Sachs, an attorney, and the daughter of a Wall Street financier. Drawing on her unique insider's perspective, Alger gives us an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions that powerfully echoes Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children and reads like a fictional Too Big to Fail. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; J.S., New York University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Cristina Alger witnessed the 2008 financial collapse up close and personal. Although she had left a job at Goldman Sachs to become a lawyer, she watched as many of her friends, still on Wall Street, lost their jobs.
There was a period of time right after Lehman Brothers collapsed. There was a string of bankruptcies and the market was crashing. New York City was changing very rapidly.... I remember thinking that someone should write about this in a fictional way and how it was affecting people in New York City.
That germ of an idea gave way to Alger's debut novel, The Darlings (2012), about a well-off New York family caught up in a financial scandal. The novel was set in a social milieu the author knows well.
Alger was born and raised in New York City, summering in the Hamptons and attending a private girl's school on Manhattan's posh Upper East Side. From there she went on to Harvard, landing a job after graduation as an investment analyst at Goldman Sachs. She spent two at Sachs before leaving for New York University to study law. Alger remained in New York after law school, working for a corporate law firm in mergers and acquisitions, a sought after area of law. But like many lawyers, after the crash she ended up in the then-hot legal field—bankruptcy.
It was while she worked as an attorney that Alger turned to writing fiction.
I started writing for fun in 2008. My work was really intense at that point so it was a fun side project. Now I write full time. There was a period where I was working and writing, which is very hard to do. My hat is off to those who can do both.
Like her first novel, her second, This Was Not the Plan, is also a setting familiar to Alger. The book follows the travails of an ambitious lawyer at a prestigious law firm who ends up unemployed and spending time with his young son for the first time. (Adapted from ibtimes.com.)
Book Reviews
Alger, who has worked at Goldman Sachs as well as at a white-shoe law firm, knows her way around 21st-century wealth and power, and she tells a suspenseful, twisty story.
Wall Street Journal
What happens to the Darling family in the course of a weekend is what carries this tale along, but it’s Alger’s description of quintessential New Yorkers, and how they survive, that adds the extra layer.... Alger has what it takes, in the best sense of the phrase.
USA Today
Penned by a former banker, this is a dishy yet thoughtful portrait of greed gone too far.... A page-turner.
Good Housekeeping
Forget Gossip Girl: If you really want a peek into the scandalous lives of New York City's elite upper class, Alger's debut novel—set during the financial downturn of 2008—gets you pretty close. The hedge funds, designer clothes, and lush Hamptons homes are all on display. But Alger also deftly juggles a complicated and myriad cast of characters who orbit around an It Family, the Darlings, who are at the center of a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme. The Darlings moves so fast that it feels more like a thriller than a social drama.
Entertainment Weekly
[S]ophisticated central characterizations make this novel well worth the time; Alger expertly evokes both sympathy and contempt for her characters and writes with a polished ease, telling the story of our time (or a particular glittery, corrupt corner of our time) with a mix of ruthlessness and sensitivity.
Publishers Weekly
Alger introduces us to flawed but sympathetically drawn characters and depicts socialite parties, luscious dinners, exquisite clothes, and holidays in the Hamptons.... [A] financial thriller with a tone that fits somewhere between the novels of Dominick Dunne (though not as flippant) and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities (though not as serious). —Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Lib., Washington, DC
Library Journal
Probably the most compulsively readable fiction to come out of the Wall Steet financial scandal so far.... Alger knows the ins and outs of both Wall Street and an upscale NYC lifestyle, nailing all the details, from the plush, hushed atmosphere of high-end law firms to the right tennis togs for a "casual" weekend in the Hamptons. Delicious reading.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Explain what the author means by, “The Darlings were people of privilege, and people of privilege was what they would remain, no matter what the cost.” (p. 127) What do you think are the must–haves or must–dos for people like the Darlings? Which aspects of their privileged life sound alluring? Which don't?
2. Paul feels somewhat trapped in the life that he thought he wanted so badly when he married Merrill. In what ways has marrying into the Darling family been a blessing and a curse?
3. Describe the relationship—professional and socially—between Duncan and Marina. How is it mutually beneficial? How does their relationship change over the course of the novel?
4. Ines laments what her life will be like after the scandal: “She would make a lifetime of avoiding the people she had once worked so hard to befriend. Even getting coffee at the deli around the corner would be a gauntlet run. She would have to wear a hat and slip in and out, unnoticed.” (p. 217) Are Ines's fears of being ostracized well founded? Do you believe she had any inkling what her husband was up to? What are ways that she could have stopped things from getting out of hand?
5. Who is the hero in this novel? Why?
6. Lily has “accepted her mother's determination that Merrill was smart and Lily was pretty.” (p. 40) How has Ines's determination affected each of her daughters' lives? Compare their reactions to their family's tragedy.
7. Schadenfreude is the enjoyment we obtain from the troubles of others. The Darlings know their story will be a media sensation. Why do we love watching famous, wealthy, or powerful people fall from grace? What are some recent examples? How is the media helpful in scandals such as the one described here? How is it harmful?
8. Yvonne says, “They were willing to sell out family, to save themselves. That's a line that I just don't ever want to cross.” (p. 294) What do you think of her sentiment? How would your opinion of her change if Paul hadn't been implicated and she allowed someone else to take the fall? What were her true motives for giving information against her employer? Were her motives noble?
9. Denial is a theme that runs through The Darlings. Paul hoped that “with time and a little distance, the complications of the past might slip away.” (p. 78) At Thanksgiving dinner, they move Morty's empty chair “all the way down to the basement, completely out of sight” (p. 187). What are other instances in the novel where characters deny or avoid a problem? What are times when characters address problems head–on? How are the outcomes different?
10. How do you think Carter's and Ines's descriptions of their marriage might differ? According to Ines, she stayed married to Carter so their daughters would grow up having everything she didn't. What are some other reasons she might have stayed in a failed marriage?
11. When she actually gets a chance to be a journalist, Marina finds new purpose and new energy. Who are some other characters who might have benefited from meaningful work? Who among the characters are the hardest workers?
(Questions issued by publisher.)