Gawker
Debut novelist Dana Vachon is all over the news of late, with a mention of his new book in today's roundup of Wall Street-themed titles in the Times Biz section, that New York mag bit about how he knows that the people who will buy his book will do so because it's trendy ("I know my audience. They don't read a book a week. My audience is people who are going to go out and buy this book because they've heard they have to read it") and of course, yesterday's A Night Out With column, which found Vachon recreating a scene from his novel at Le Bilboquet with the people who his characters are based on.
Both that piece and the New York profile portray a young man whose success is so assured that he's not afraid of seeming overconfident. However, it was a different Vachon who emerged from the newsstand at the corner of Spring and Lafayette not long ago. He walked down the street with his brow furrowed and nose buried deep in the fresh copy of New York in his hands; he flipped through the pages frantically. Perhaps he was boning up on his insurance options. He was shorter than I expected.
Made in Manhattan [NYT]
DNasty Boy [NYMag]
Comments
I'm a little confused as to what, exactly, Dana is doing in this photograph. People who were raised in Connecticut should not lift their arms in such a fashion, unless they're starring in a sponsored alcoholic-tea-partay video.
I think his audience actually doesn't read books at all. From the sound of things, that could only help their enjoyment of his novel. That and a pretty dust jacket.
Guys named Dana....ewwww.
He's trying to tell his helicopter pilot not to land on the hydrangeas.
@cdmunch: No way, man, this is New Greenwich: he's standing IN the hydrangeas while hailing whatever helicopter happens to pass first- whether it's his or someone else's at the club- because that's the way he rolls.
I think I speak for all of humanity when I say that we're getting pretty damned tired of "young [men] whose success is so assured that [they're] not afraid of seeming overconfident."
I ask myself what on earth would make you expect that he would be tall...
Now that I know more than I ever wanted to know about Dana Vachon's background, I'm pretty sure that he can at least afford a decent haircut.
I went to high school with Dana ( or Dan as he was called then - not too assured to be called Dana yet). Talk about being overconfident- he spent an obsene amount of time and money to track down Mili-Vanili's "Girl You Know It's True" to use in his election speech for student body president- I don't quite remember how he made it tie in to student government or if it worked out that well... but you know how all these articles hint how he's kind of a pop culture savant with ADHD- it's basically true
I read the book twice because it was so bad.
The opening page should tell you how disorganized it's all gonna be, but it lacks conflict where it should have some eg, in his relationship with his girlfriend, it doesn't know jack Latin America or anything about the Latin elite or the Zapateros, and it knows absolutely nothing about investment banking, its firm premise is that all success is meritless and the bigger the wastrel you are, the higher you rise.
Know what it sounds like? Some lazy creep couldn't make it on Wall Street who sat around looking at all those who did and started making up excuses for their success to justify his own failures. In short, a guy with a loser mentality who wrote this to project his inner loser on everyone else.
The hype he's getting is amazing, though.
Whoops! I don't know anything about Latam either - I meant Zapatistas, not Zapateros, sorry, just got off the phone with a guy in Spain.
Finally, young white men are finding confidence and literary success. It's about time.
Drama rocked the tabloid news website Gawker last week when half the editorial staff abruptly resigned.
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