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Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite
The Last Poet on Wall Street by Michael Goodwin follows James Alexander, an exceptionally gifted young poet from rural Tennessee who abandons a Yale fellowship to chase riches in New York in the 1980s. Lark Campbell, someone James knew in college, recruits him, and James quickly transforms his instinct for commodities trading into a fortune. He creates his own company, Alex Bell International, and becomes intoxicated with wealth that includes a Fifth Avenue penthouse, Italian sports cars, and admission into the status-obsessed Young Internationalists. James gradually erases the idealist part of him, the part that founded the Neo-Raphaelite society. With the market boom becoming fragile, personal betrayal, a Hollywood investment evaporating, and fraudulent tax allegations, how long before James’ empire collapses, and what will happen when he hits rock bottom?
Michael Goodwin creates a compelling character in James, a man whose desire for wealth and status conflicts with his passion for poetry. His brilliant mind is only countered by his one tragic flaw: insecurity. Even his relationship with the intellectually grounded poet, Sarah, does not seem to fix that character flaw. The worldbuilding cleverly captures the 1980s Reagan-era excess, a world where the floors of Wall Street hum with unchecked greed, and the nightlife is characterized by velvet-roped clubs such as the Boom Boom Room, filled with designer suits, ruthless social climbing, and cocaine. The pacing in The Last Poet on Wall Street is like the volatile markets it depicts, moving from euphoric highs to catastrophic lows with breathtaking momentum. This book made me think about the destructive collision of commerce and art, the emptiness of an unexamined materialistic life, and the performative nature of identity. I was utterly invested in the memorable characters as I was in the excellent prose.
