Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Memoirs

FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY

Sam Polk

A Memoir

Based on a front page New York Times piece that went viral, a former hedge fund trader's memoir about coming of age on Wall Street and the decision to forgo the success he achieved. Raw, vivid and immensely readable, For the Love of Money explores the birth of a young hedge fund trader, and the paradoxically volatile forces that enable one to succeed in big finance.

In 2011, at just 30 years old, Sam Polk was a senior trader for one of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street, on the verge of making it to the very top. When he was offered an annual bonus of $3.75 million, he grew angry because it was not enough. In that moment he knew he had lost himself in his obsessive pursuit of money. And he had come to loathe the culture--the shallowness, the sexism, the crude machismo--and Wall Street's use of wealth as the sole measurement of a person's worth. He decided to walk away from it all.

For Polk, becoming a Wall Street trader was the fulfillment of his dreams. But in reality it was just the culmination of a life of addictive and self-destructive behaviors, from over-eating, to bulimia, to alcohol and drug abuse. Making money was just the latest attempt to fill the void left by his abusive and emotionally unavailable father. Raw, vivid and immensely readable, For the Love of Money explores the birth of a young hedge fund trader, and the paradoxically volatile forces that enable one to succeed in big finance.

Polk's essay, "For the Love of Money" appeared on the cover of the Times' Sunday Review section. The piece, about leaving Wall Street, was read by over 16 million people. For days it was the Times' most e-mailed and blogged story, and it trended on Twitter and Reddit. He received thousands of supportive messages, many from traders wrestling with the same questions. The response to his piece speaks to the need for this kind of narrative.

Available products
Book Published 2016-07-01 by Scribner
Book Published 2016-07-01 by Scribner

Comments

Riveting. Polk has managed to write a fast-paced thriller, while at the same time exploring the pain underneath our desire for money, power, and success with startling honesty, brilliance, and depth. But perhaps the best part (and there are so many best parts in For the Love of Money), is that Polk’s story is a remarkable blueprint of hope and transformation for what comes after greed. I was blown away.

Beyond a cautionary tale on wealth addiction and the toxic culture of Wall Street, For The Love of Money is also a tender and clear story of the transformation of a soul in search of self and healing. Along with a vivid entry into the world of a hedge fund trader, the reader finds resonance in Sam Polk's excavation of his essential wound and is likewise brought into the bright light of wholeness.

A page-turning journey of radical transformation with rare insights into the dysfunction of Wall Street and our achievement-obsessed culture, written with a level of honesty and depth that is rare for any author, let alone a former hedge-fund trader!

For the Love of Money is one of the most important memoirs of our time. Sam Polk takes us on a journey through the upper echelons of Wall Street, where money and self-worth are often inseparable. Polk shows how he got swept up in a culture of accumulation, and how he managed to extract himself by making peace with his past. Polk’s humility and unflinching honesty offers us hope for tomorrow, and an account of what truly matters. This is a must read.