Ways and Means : A Novel / Lefferts, Daniel
"Deadly serious in ambition, wildly entertaining in execution, Ways and Means is a remarkably accomplished debut . . . Every line of this gorgeous novel glows with Lefferts' intelligence and compassion." -ANTHONY MARRA, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena "A work of enormous wit, humor, and passion that captures life in turbo capitalist America with compassion and grace." -GARY SHTEYNGART, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends "Totally absorbing . . . Lefferts delivers The Great Gatsby for the 21st-century: irreverent, sexy, and sharp. A major event." -JESSI JEZEWSKA STEVENS, author of The Exhibition of Persephone Q and The Visitors A searing debut novel about a striving finance student, the line between ambition and greed, and the disordered politics of our era Alistair McCabe comes to New York with a plan. Young, handsome, intelligent, and gay, he hopes to escape his Rust Belt poverty and give his mother a better life by pursuing a career in high finance. But by the spring of 2016, Alistair's plan has come undone: His fantasy banking job has eluded him, he's mired in student debt, and in his desperation he's gone to work for an enigmatic billionaire whose ambitions turn out to be far darker than Alistair could have imagined. By the time Alistair uncovers his employer's secret, his life is in danger and he's forced to go on the run. Meanwhile, Alistair's paramours, an older couple named Mark and Elijah, must face their own moral and financial dilemmas. Mark, nearing the end of his trust fund, takes a job with his father's mobile-home empire that forces him to confront the unsavory foundations of his family's wealth, while Elijah, a failed painter, throws in his lot with an artist-provocateur whose latest project transforms the country's political chaos into a thing of alluring, amoral beauty. As the nation hurtles toward a breaking point, Alistair, Mark, and Elijah must band together to save one another and themselves. Propulsive, exuberant, and profoundly observed, Ways and Means is an indelible, clear-eyed investigation of class and ambition, sex and art, and politics and power in twenty-first century America. "Ambitious and exciting...Lefferts's nimble sense of scale enables him to convincingly depict the blue-chip firms who rejected Alistair and exploit the housing market, then zoom in for poignant and subtle psychological realism. The results are electrifying."; "Taking place in the shadow of the 2016 political upheaval and the disillusionment that follows, Daniel Lefferts' debut novel puts quintessential millennial striving under the microscope to glorious effect... Alistair McCabe, a gay Rust Belt transplant to NYC, is like so many of us: working for someone shady in order to get out of student debt. But the secrets his billionaire employer is hiding end up being dangerous enough that Alistair himself has to go on the run. His lovers, Mark and Elijah, are struggling with their own jobs and attendant moral compromises."; "What happens when the American Dream fails you almost instantly? Lefferts explores a finance bro who wasn't while he tackles ambition and drive in a biting expose."; "Compelling . . . In [Ways and Means], the personal, often bodily drama of coming-of-age is inextricable from the inhuman forces of capital."; "[A]n astute examination the complex intersection of money and intimacy...Alistair McCabe, a young gay college student from the Rust Belt, dreams of a career in high finance, a fantasy turned nightmare when he finds himself entangled with an enigmatic billionaire whose nefarious ambition puts Alistair's life at risk. Lefferts's debut...traces Alistair's descent alongside the dissolution of the relationship between his paramours, an artistic couple with the
