For at least two Chicagoans, the FBI`s secret investigation into fraud and corruption in the city`s commodity exchanges came as delightful (and potentially profitable) news. By a happy coincidence, the latest novels by James McManus and William Brashler have plots that prominently involve commodity traders and other dirty rotten scoundrels.
”I`m absolutely ecstatic,” said Brashler, whose novel, ”Traders,”
will be published in April. ” It`s a shame that Chicago is getting hurt by all this, but anything that focuses attention on a book I`ve written . . . well, I only wish it were going to be in the stores tomorrow.”
McManus` novel, ”Ghost Waves,” has been in bookstores since November. But perhaps because it deals less extensively with commodity trading, the author wasn`t nearly so optimistic that the scandal would increase reader interest in the book. ”But if it does I won`t be unhappy,” he said.
As described by Brashler, ”Traders” would appear to fit snugly into the tradition of ”mercantile” fiction. The category ranges from Frank Norris`
muckraking novel, ”The Pit,” published in 1903, to Tom Wolfe`s 1987 epic,
”The Bonfire of the Vanities.”
More important, Brashler said, ”Traders” has timely parallels with the FBI`s two-year sting, in which two agents posed as brokers to gather evidence of fraud and illegal activity in the Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange, the country`s largest commodity houses.
Though there`s no FBI investigation in his book, Brashler said
”Traders” does provide plenty of insider information about ”dirty dealing” (not only bonds but drugs) in the Board of Trade.
Brashler spent many weeks in the U.S. treasury bond pits while researching a 1983 magazine article. The author of three other novels, Brashler was later able to use the material as the basis for ”Traders.”
According to Brashler, the novel follows his heroine, Joanie Yff, as she learns the commodity business from the trading floor up. In the process, readers get a blow-by-blow description of how the futures pits operate, an accurate demonstration of what all the pushing and shouting are about.
”I can`t think of anything that`s tougher on you mentally, because there`s so much risk involved,” Brashler said. ”But it`s also incredibly physical.”
Despite all the tumult and the shoving, Brashler said, the commodities market is not nearly as complex or as mystifying as it looks to outsiders.
”I liken it more than anything else to poker. It`s not a complicated game, but it takes incredible intelligence, instincts and guts to play it well.”
”A high-stakes poker player” is how McManus describes Richard Baum, the sleazy wheat trader who has a crucial role in ”Ghost Waves.” But for all the physical scenes in the commodity pits, this is a metaphysical novel, centering on the ”ghost waves” that Baum`s stepdaughter, an aspiring rock singer, receives from her real father, a casualty of Vietnam.
In researching his book, McManus, like Brashler, necessarily logged a lot of time in the commodity pits, which he describes in the novel as ”a brawl in a gumball machine” and a ”manic orgy of moxie.”
Though the novel is filled with arcane information about commodity trading and greedy traders, McManus doesn`t recommend ”Ghost Waves” as a guidebook to the wheat markets. On the other hand, he said, careful readers can learn a good deal about ”the relationship between performance reality and terrorism.”
