AFlavorwireBook of the WeekANew York Daily NewsCan't-Put-Down Novel

[Parish] has got chops, and a feel for dialogue, and is a talent in the making.

Bill Buford,The Wall Street Journal

Read this book in a beach chair. . . . [A] worldy and propulsive debut.GQ

An exhilarating novel of reinvention, friendship, and ambitionfrom the Jersey Shore to St. Andrews in Scotland

Tom Alison has it all within his reach. Hes smart, handsome, and about to graduate from a prestigious East Coast boarding school. After that its off to the Ivy League and then a job on Wall Street, alongside the power brokers hes been watching from a distance as the working-class son of a single mom. And then the very life his mother worked so hard to escape catches up with him when he gets busted selling drugs.

Lucky for Tom, there are places for boys and girls with ruined reputations. First, he returns to his roots on the Jersey Shore, reconnecting with a hard-living crew and cementing a bond with his new friend Clare Savagethe son of a recently disgraced financier. The two boys spend their summer surfing and partying. When fall arrives, they head to St. Andrews University in Scotland, a haven for Americans in need of a second chance and a favorite of the British ruling class. Tom and Clare escape to Scotland together, but its Tom who discovers a world shaped by even more powerful forces of greed and ambition than the one he left behind. Sucked into a maelstrom of sex, drugs, and status, Tom learns what it takes to break the rulesand how we can be broken by them.

Driven by a cast of young men and women living in an age of riotous prosperity,is an unflinching and unforgettable story of youth steeped in excess. Stan Parish has crafted a gripping novel that masterfully captures the lives of fallen financiers and the people they bring down with themand reminds us that not even an ocean can separate us from our family, our friends, or our past.