Black Tuesday

To be honest I came across this book because my husband has done an incredible amount of reading about the stock market since January 2021. The month that GameStop Stock (GME) had the epic sneeze and when many brokers prevented retail investors from buying into GME.

While that was the beginning of our story, it has continued into much more than that. So eventually, we found Nomi Prins. We bought 6 of her books to get the perspective of someone who's been on the inside. I began reading Black Tuesday, thinking it was going to be a historical account of the 1929 market crash, so I thought it would be a good start. Then I realized after reading the back of the book, it's actually a novel! I was so surprised. I looked at the cover to find the small print of "A Novel" under the massive title "Black Tuesday". Of course that didn't stop me, but I felt I may need to revise my expectations. I still love fiction, but I was thinking I would read some hard facts. Nonetheless, I continued with an open heart to see what this book would have in store for me.

The author does a good job of painting a picture of what it's like to live in 1929. Sometimes it's even relatable, closing the gap of 90 years between the story itself and current times. It seems history repeats itself, or some things don't change.

So, it follows the main character Leila, who immigrated to America from Russia with her younger sister. She lives with her aunt and 2 cousins in an apartment. She begins working at a diner, which the Wall Street men frequent. This is in essence the ground for the story to build on. I feel the story overall was really well done and it felt the story unfolded naturally, and left me wonder "oh what will she do?!" pretty often. Reading her thought process, and how Leila navigated some really interesting and complicated feelings, emotions and morally grey actions.

I will say, I found some of the interpersonal conflict resolution with her family/Nelson (bf) to be unrealistic at times, but it was generally always very compassionate and forgiving. I don't like realism all the time so this was a welcome "unrealism".

It's a story about a woman who's trying to figure out her place in the world, while balancing obligations and her own wants/needs. Her family can be suffocating, but they are supportive, while poor; which is contrasted against the "other" world of Wall Street, where there is only conniving and deceit, with loyalty to whoever has the most money. It's creating loyalties with other people within the system, like the judges, lawyers, and other rich people. It's planning what to tell the media, it's blackmail of those who inherit money, it's killing people who are looking for the truth, it's beating people to hide the truth.

The end of the book was not a happily ever after, however, it left me feeling satisfied, and ready to dive into the next Nomi Prins book. It's wasn't all sunshine's and rainbows, but just like in real life, we all must move on for ourselves.