"For Christ sake don't become a fluffmeister" are the last words Barnaby
Griswold's father utters to him. But despite trying to turn out
otherwise, Barnaby is indisputably a fool. A well-educated,
well-connected investments player on the one hand, but an entitled
money-driven fool on the other.
Barnaby Griswold's life changes almost overnight when he's found to have
acted perhaps slimily (but not illegally) by selling short a stock. His
wife deserts him, his daughters disown him, and he loses his final and
favorite home. All he has left is a similarly deserted mother-in-law, in
Oklahoma of all places, and of course the enemies who went belly up on
his final deal.
At forty-six, disgraced and broke and lonely, Barnaby must repair his
life and maybe, just maybe, he'll learn that doing the foolish thing may
lead to his redemption.
Out of print for more than a decade, Frederick G. Dillen's comic and now
timely novel about an unlikely hero is being reissued as part of
librarian and NPR commentator Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries
series.