Bank
When Luke’s reckless mate Finn announces that he’s come up with the perfect get-rich-quick scheme, Luke is cautious. Finn wants to start a bank. They’ll lend money to their classmates, take deposits and even invest in clever business ideas like dating apps and performing pigs. The other lads think it’s a great idea, and even Luke is impressed when business starts to boom, but in the back of his mind he still wonders if financial success can really be this easy …
Sharp, funny and fast-paced, Bank is the latest triumph from Little Island Books. Not only has Quigley come up with an ingeniously simple way of explaining complex financial concepts, she’s also constructed a perfectly plotted house of cards. Each success that the young bankers experience drives them to make a riskier bet in order to keep growing their business. It’s inevitable that the house of cards must collapse, but even as the reader sees disaster looming they continue to root for Luke to somehow save the day. There could be a version of this story that’s more purely satirical, that prioritises the analogies to the last financial crash above keeping the story grounded in its rural secondary school setting and that invites readers to focus only on the characters’ failings at the expense of their humanity. What Quigley has achieved, however, is far more difficult, more original and more respectful of her target audience. A remarkable debut.
