Game More, Pay Less
£7.59

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Sold by Amazon Media EU S.à r.l..
Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will pre-order your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships and Subscriptions
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Aifric Campbell
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

On the Floor Kindle Edition

by Aifric Campbell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.4 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

In the City everything has a price.

At the age of twenty-eight, Dubliner Geri Molloy has put her troubled past behind her to become a major player at Steiner's investment bank in London, earning £850k a year doing business with a reclusive hedge fund manager in Hong Kong who, in return for his patronage, likes to ask her about Kant and watch while she eats exotic Asian delicacies.

For five years Geri has had it all, but in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, her life starts to unravel. Abandoned by her corporate financier boyfriend, in the grip of a debilitating insomnia, and drinking far too much, Geri becomes entangled in a hostile takeover involving her boss, her client and her ex. With her career on the line as a consequence, and no one to turn to, she is close to losing it, in every sense.

Taut and fast-paced, On the Floor is about making money and taking risks; it's about getting away with it, and what happens when you're no longer one step ahead; ultimately, though, it's a reminder to never, ever underestimate the personal cost of success.

Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    260 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Serpent's Tail
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    1 Mar. 2012
  6. File size
    1.6 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
Next slide of product details

Product description

Review

'Of all the contemporary heroines, Geri Molloy might be the most badass. Watch out, Lisbeth Salander Marie Claire US

'Part of what makes Irish author Aifric Campbell's [On the Floor] work is her refusal to pity her characters... Her tough-talking, irreverent prose engenders an updated take on the Wall Street morality tale' The Daily Beast

'Confident, engaging, and incredibly readable ... Recalling Bonfire of the Vanities and Wall Street, On the Floor is a work that throws us lock, stock, and barrel into the world of high finance ... a fascinating read sometimes terrifying, often witty, always engagingly written. Judging from this debut, you can bank on Ms Campbell to produce wonderful results in the future' --New York Journal of Books

'Aifric Campbell is one of my favourite Irish novelists' Joseph O'Connor

'A riveting novel from a unique talent. Aifric Campbell effortlessly conjures the action and excitement of the trading room floor creating a novel that explores the consequences of risk taking and ultimately thrills from start to finish' Irish Tatler

'An energetic and illuminating read ... Campbell manages to make this portrayal both eloquent and funny' Independent

'On the Floor is the smartest financial novel since Bonfire of the Vanities , and the first with a fully-drawn female heroine. As someone who lived through the depths of 1990s Wall Street, I can attest that the details are dead right.' --Frank Partnoy, author of F.I.A.S.C.O. and Wait

About the Author

AIFRIC CAMPBELL spent thirteen years at Morgan Stanley, where she became the first woman managing director on the London trading floor. She left to earn a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of East Anglia and currently teaches at Imperial College, London. Campbell has been awarded a fellowship at UCLA and residencies at Yaddo.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007HLIRJ6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Serpent's Tail
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 Mar. 2012
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ Main
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.6 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1847658012
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer reviews:
    3.4 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Aifric Campbell

Aifric Campbell

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

THE LOVE MAKERS (2021) is Aifric Campbell's 4th book and combines her novel, Scarlett and Gurl, with contributor essays to ask what is the future of love? "Wild, innovative and alive with intelligence and imagination ... a dark Thelma & Louise for the AI generation." (Arifa Akbar, Guardian) "... a suspenseful, plausible near-future road trip published alongside essays by experts in fields ranging from robotics and artificial intelligence to law and ethics. It deserves attention." (Lisa Tuttle, Guardian) "A brilliant exploration of all the subtle ways that AI challenges our understanding of motherhood, friends and romantic love." (Louisa Hall) Aifric's previous novels: ON THE FLOOR, longlisted for the 2012 ORANGE PRIZE and inspired by her years working on the trading floor at Morgan Stanley, "plunges straight into the financial world’s heart of darkness." (LA Times); THE SEMANTICS OF MURDER, inspired by the unsolved murder of a brilliant mathematician at UCLA and THE LOSS ADJUSTOR, which tells the story of a young woman haunted by childhood tragedy. Aifric has written for the Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Irish Times, Sunday Business Post, received residencies at Yaddo and the Museum of Fine Art Houston and her speaking engagements include the LSE and The Global Economics Forum, Dublin. She grew up in Ireland, studied in Sweden and lives in London. She holds a PhD from UEA and teaches at Imperial College London. Follow her on www.aifriccampbell.com/Twitter/LinkedIn

Customer reviews

3.4 out of 5 stars
48 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find this book to be a compelling and enjoyable read with well-written prose that moves at a good pace. The book receives positive feedback for its pacing, with one customer noting it provides a fascinating pen-picture of daily life.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

11 customers mention ‘Readability’11 positive0 negative

Customers find the book enjoyable and clever, with one customer noting its sharp insight into the era.

"A well-written, sharp insight into the era before things changed for dealers...." Read more

"This is a novel of three parts. The first third is a very compelling and fascinating pen-picture of daily life on the hectic macho and materialist..." Read more

"...This novel is harrowing and fun, sensitive and racy - it is work of genuinely literary quality and artful writing." Read more

"Aifric Campbell's third novel,is witty,intelligent and very readable. Set in 1991,as the Gulf War is about to commence,Geri Molloy,..." Read more

7 customers mention ‘Writing quality’7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well-written and easy to read, with one customer noting that the prose moves at pace and style.

"A well-written, sharp insight into the era before things changed for dealers...." Read more

"...It's well-written and easy to read, but until the last part it consists more of description than plot...." Read more

"...go 80's in finance, but the most compelling part of this book is the beautiful and deeply moving portrayal of the heroine at the centre of it all...." Read more

"Aifric Campbell's third novel,is witty,intelligent and very readable. Set in 1991,as the Gulf War is about to commence,Geri Molloy,..." Read more

5 customers mention ‘Pacing’5 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, with one noting it provides a fascinating pen-picture of daily life, while another describes it as a deeply moving portrayal.

"...The first third is a very compelling and fascinating pen-picture of daily life on the hectic macho and materialist trading floor of a major..." Read more

"...the most compelling part of this book is the beautiful and deeply moving portrayal of the heroine at the centre of it all...." Read more

"great story, easy read and found it to be a story didn't find hard to get into ...." Read more

"...it was very true to life!" Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Felis
    4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting, funny and uplifting novel about the decade when greed was good.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2013
    Verified Purchase
    A well-written, sharp insight into the era before things changed for dealers. You are almost physically present with the heroine throughout her feverish, rushed adventures and know this can end very badly, or very well. It can become a compelling cover-to-cover read until you find out.

    The author had clearly researched the environment of dealers and sales floors of the time when computers were just being introduced and the current technology and rules, or lack of, were yet to come. The old-style sales floor, referred to in the title, was to change beyond recognition.

    I like it well enough to start following the author and look for her previous novel, which sounds very different from this work.
    Helpful
     Report
  • Stefan43
    3.0 out of 5 stars A horrifying portrayal of amoral bankers
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This is a novel of three parts. The first third is a very compelling and fascinating pen-picture of daily life on the hectic macho and materialist trading floor of a major investment bank; in the middle part the story sags, and it almost lost me; the final third, with a surprising twist, is a very psychological portrayal of a breakdown. It's well-written and easy to read, but until the last part it consists more of description than plot. The sheer unpleasantness of all the characters except the narrator is horrifying; a terrible indictment of the financial world, where nothing counts except making more money than the next guy. If the novel is indeed semi-autobiographical, the author did well to get out, as she had nothing in common with the jerks she worked with. I hesitated between four stars or three. Three in the end because it's so slow-moving, especially in the middle. A psychological novel rather than a plot-driven one.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Eli Lederman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific read! Authentic and artful.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Campbell does a magnificent job setting the stage for the story with trading floors that reek of egos and greed, vividly populated by characters who are simultaneously intense and desperately shallow. Her prose moves at pace and style that convey the authentic energy of the go-go 80's in finance, but the most compelling part of this book is the beautiful and deeply moving portrayal of the heroine at the centre of it all. Fiercely independent and profoundly vulnerable, lost and found, Geri emerges as so eminently believable. This novel is harrowing and fun, sensitive and racy - it is work of genuinely literary quality and artful writing.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Simon Clarke
    4.0 out of 5 stars On The Floor-Aifric Campbell
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Aifric Campbell's third novel,is witty,intelligent and very
    readable.
    Set in 1991,as the Gulf War is about to commence,Geri Molloy,
    a young Irish woman,from a humble background,but with a
    remarkable facility for numbers,is a highly paid trader in
    a London investment bank. She is in the throes of a breakdown.
    Her boyfriend has ditched her,she hardly sleeps or eats and
    she drinks heavily.Her lofty position at work is dependent on
    the patronage of an iconoclastic hedge fund manager in Hong Kong.
    As the story develops towards a hugely lucrative deal,Geri has to face how
    much control she has over her life,as those she interacts with
    treat other people as commodities to be used and discarded.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Touille13
    3.0 out of 5 stars Reasonable read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Found it all a bit monotonous and didn't really capture the market feeling/work thing. More just one female dealing in a man's world!
    Helpful
     Report
  • John
    5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book,
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 December 2013
    Verified Purchase
    great story, easy read and found it to be a story didn't find hard to get into . Probably a story that takes very little effort to read on a lazy day - Sunday afternoon read.
    Helpful
     Report
  • Lizzy
    2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Gave up after a few pages could not connect with the characters thougth from the sample it was going to be exciting a woman in a man's world but sorry to say it was very disappointing
    Helpful
     Report
  • Moth
    4.0 out of 5 stars An insight into the life of the city.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 April 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This book was an enjoyable read, giving an interesting insight into the stresses and strains of the trading floor. The pace was sustained well to ed and it's inevitable conclusion. I. would certainly like to read more books by this author.e
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • iank
    4.0 out of 5 stars Wall Street meets the literary novel
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 July 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I read the Amazon book reviews to try to predict whether I will like the book. In general I've found the Amazon reviews far more useful than the New York Times book reviews.

    Will you like this book? If you have no interest in finance you may not. Aifric Campbell has done a good job of making the book accessible and she keeps finance to the background. But the world of the "sell side" investment bank is a constant backdrop to the story. I do have a strong interest in finance (and some knowledge about it), so the backdrop of finance was what attracted me to the book.

    On the Floor is a novel with many layers. Non-fiction books like Street Freak, The Buy Side and the classic Liar's Poker provide interesting pictures of trading for an investment bank. But few of them delve as deeply into the costs and compromises that this world can require. On the Floor extends this to the costs and compromises that we sometimes make for love.

    Aifric Campbell was a floor trader for Morgan Stanley for 13 years. A floor trader trades directly with the investment banks clients, buying and selling positions in financial assets. Floor traders work on trading floors, which have historically been cavernous spaces with clusters of traders ("desks") who concentrate on a specific asset, like Japanese convertible bonds or US stocks. Successful floor traders develop relationships with "buy side" investment funds.

    The main character, Geri (Geraldine) Malloy is a floor trader at the London branch of a US investment bank. The book is set in the run-up to the first Gulf War in January 1991.

    The world of finance changes very rapidly. In "On the Floor", the quants, mathematicians who build financial models, are waiting in the wings to replace the floor traders who sometimes don't have college degrees. Convertible bonds are still being priced by "the market", but the bank is building the models and trading system that will soon beat the human traders, making them obsolete.

    Geri has been very successful, a "skirt among men". She trades barbs with the male traders and puts up with the constant hazing of the trading floor. However, the foundation of her success is a hedge fund manager named Felix. Felix is a "size trader" managing a large hedge fund in Hong Kong (which is still British, but is on the verge of being taken over by the mainland Chinese in 1999).

    There are a few reasons that funds trade blocks of stock through investment banks. One of these is information. The investment bank may see a larger picture of the market than the fund. This information is one of the things a floor trader can offer an investment fund in exchange for the trading commissions from their order flow.

    Felix does not want information. Instead he has a fascination with Geri. The male traders claim that Geri's relationship with Felix is based on the fact that she's a woman. Felix is fascinated with her mind, and perhaps her soul. He refers to her as an unrecognized and under-priced asset (which is what he specializes in recognizing).

    Running through the novel is the question of what we will trade for what we want. Geri is making somewhere around a million a year (in 1991 dollars). What is she willing to do for that money? Or in other parts of her life, what is she willing to trade to be loved?

    Finance is fascinating, especially in our current world where mathematical finance has completely taken root. But there are many fascinating areas that one can work in. The allure of finance is the promise of wealth. But the promise can be little more than a mirage and not all compromises are rewarded. Which is perhaps one of the core themes of "On the Floor".

    The final end of the book is somewhat enigmatic. I was left wondering whether Geri finally stopped selling. I think so, but I'm not sure.

    A final aside: Sometimes writers create characters that have traits they wish they had. One of the quants tells Geri that she's wasting her time as a floor trader: that she could be brilliant as a quant. Geri is almost a savant when it comes to arithmetic problems, which is certainly a good skill for a floor trader who must quickly calculate whether a trade may be profitable. The ability to understand the abstract language of mathematics is not necessarily the same as the ability to solve arithmetic problems.
    Report
  • Mary Mac Cabe
    3.0 out of 5 stars Chick lit - pretending to be more
    Reviewed in the United States on 7 January 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Characters not really believeable - and the end was a bit of a disappointment. Some ridiculous scenes in this too.
    Report
  • Pogo
    5.0 out of 5 stars Action Adventure in the Place Where You Work
    Reviewed in the United States on 18 August 2013
    Verified Purchase
    This is an extremly well written story that paces like an action thriller. Except the thrill of this story is carried by people like you and me, people who work real jobs in todays offices; the real frustrations, the real personalities, the real personal compromises that we make to win the money and the relationships that we think we need, the real pressures and the real risks. But we don't look at all that as deeply as Aifric Cambell does. She has a keen eye for characters -- the same characters that you and I work with -- and she parces them with her merciless wit that cuts to the core. But it is not just her caustic observatons of other people and the banking game where she is a player but the way that she turns that keen eye and caustic introspection to herself (via her protagonist).

    I bought On The Floor after hearing Aifric Campbell talking with Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace. I expected to get some insight into how things really go down on the trading floor but I was blown away to see what goes on in the heart of the beast -- and that is the same beast that lives inside each of us. Watch out. This story may come too close for comfort.
    Report
  • Review Maven
    1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
    Reviewed in the United States on 14 October 2013
    Verified Purchase
    An error on my part; didn't realize this was about the British Stock Exchange, not American. But, I tried to read it anyway. Couldn't understand half the words (either British English or stockbroker lingo) and so I gave up at the 25% mark. Not only that, I wasn't sure why the story wasn't set in the present day instead of the first Gulf War. Oh well. Next time I will read more reviews (other than a PW review) before I download a book. Hopefully this book will have some British readers who can understand it better. Carry on.
    Report
  • Colleen Flynn
    4.0 out of 5 stars investment banking from a female point of view
    Reviewed in the United States on 28 October 2013
    Verified Purchase
    The author does a fantastic job of painting the investment banking scene from a female point of view. Unfortunately, the protagonist, Geri Molloy, is in over her head. Despite a talent for mathematics, which she hides, she is kept by her company because a major client in Hong Kong happens to like her and will only deal with her firm through her. This recluse, Felix, appears to play the role of a fairy godfather. He has a paternalistic relationship to Geri and gives her Yoda like guidance, reading from Kant or Descartes, and generally keeps her around as a plaything or curiosity.

    Meanwhile Geri is a puppet on the string of her bosses, and betrayed by everyone around, especially her slimey ex-boyfriend who takes advantage of her at every turn. After Geri screws up the deal, she goes AWOL in a surreal scene that could have come out of a Stephen King book. We find a lot of gory and sad backstory. Geri is told to snap out of it, and takes up Felix's offer to keep her job by moving to Hong Kong.

    The ending is unresolved. I think it is supposed to show that she has finally grown up, but somehow I see her as still dancing to strings, this time Felix's. There is a enigma at the very end, and the reader is left wondering which ticket she chooses.

    Geri is a hard protagonist to follow. She oftentimes delves into backstory as if it were happening in the moment. There are some great scenes of drinking too much and misjudging her surroundings, who she is with and what she should or should not be talking about. I find it hard to believe that Geri, as written, would have ever been seen as a rising star. I did not get the feeling she was that competent. All I saw was that Felix for some reason liked her and his influence kept her in good graces with her employer.

    Meanwhile, her despicable ex-boyfriend is the epitome of wall street jerk, and her ex-best friend, Zanna, the ultimate backstabber. There were no likeable characters in this story other than Rex, Geri's dog who has a happy ending.

    As literary fiction, it has great description and sets a somber mood, and therefore I don't expect a plot with the crisp pacing of genre fiction.
    Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report