Boom Lit

What?!? Nostalgic?!? Arent we supposed to be bitter, white-lipped, and trembling with rage that we were all so hoodwinked by the boom? I saw my options plummet, too, and felt my wax wings melt, but my ire has turned to irony. After selling out at fire-sale prices, then seeing Amazon soar again, I realize you cant even trust despair on Wall Street, and you cant regard fates sine wave as anything but grist for (often comic) drama. Whats lost is gone for good; investors loss is literatures gain. (Nationally, see books like John Cassidys Dot.con and Michael Wolffs Burn Rate, or documentaries like eDreams and Startup.com.)

But spare me the moralizing. Business has no morality, only character and incident, flash and shadow. Reading the books described here was a better investment than practically any tech stock, though I eagerly await the genres category killer. Byers fails to convey the violence of boom culture, the accelerated grimace imposed by the roller coaster of dreams. Raban writes about the boom at a remove, as if he read about it in a bookin fact, books are his protagonists snug prison, and the prism through which he sees Seattle nature and culture. Moody dazzlingly projects his internal drama on local history, but his idiosyncrasy makes me feel like Im entering somebody elses world, not the one we all share. (I never thought the WTO riots were a comeuppance for ambition, just a bunch of punk anarchists looking for free shoes from Niketown.) Given Marcus catbird seat at Amazon and his aversion to moral pronouncements, his book may be the one I like bestprovided I like how my character comes off.

Bootsy Holler

Fred Moody, author of Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story.

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• Fred Moody
• Mike Byers
• James Marcus
• Bill Gates
• Jeff Bezos

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But despite my reservations, Im exhilarated by these initial titles from the boom bookshelf. Why? Because the dot-com booms promise has finally been fulfilled. At lastits all about content.

tappelo@seattleweekly.com

Fred Moody will read at Elliott Bay Book Co. (101 S. Main St., 206-624-6600), 7:30 p.m. Mon., Sept. 8.