Cash Out: A Hilarious Debut Satire – Silicon Valley Comic Caper of Corporate Chaos (P.S.) - Softcover

Bardsley, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062127713 ISBN 13: 9780062127716

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2012

Synopsis

“Cash Out is one of those novels that begs for more adjectives: relentless, madcap, polished, lean, vivid, warped, original, horrifying and hilarious in equal measure.”
—Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes and The Amateur

Imagine a story by Ben Mezrich (The Accidental Billionaires, 21) of staggering financial improprieties infused with Tim Dorsey’s (Hurricane Punch, Gator A-Go-Go) zany, over-the-top pure insanity, and you might have something somewhat resembling Cash Out, the rollicking debut novel  by Greg Bardsley. This is nonstop, mercilessly hilarious, no-holds-barred fiction for fans of  The Hangover and Office Space—an outrageous tall tale that follows one desperate, disgruntled Silicon Valley exec through a his surreal three-day scramble to cash out his stock options and leave behind his hated high-tech job before outrageous villains (and even crazier friends) completely destroy him. Do you like the wildly satirical work of Tom Perrotta, Sam Lipsyte, and Gary Shteyngart? Do the ingenious comic caper novels of Elmore Leonard leave you breathless and exhilarated?  Then get ready to Cash Out.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Bardsley has worked as a Silicon Valley speechwriter, a news-paper reporter, and a weekly columnist. His ghostwriting for high-profile business executives has appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, and the Financial Times. His short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including 3:AM magazine, Plots with Guns, Uncage Me, and Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From the Back Cover

It's 2008. In three days, family man and Silicon Valley speechwriter Dan Jordan will see his start-up stock vest. He'll cash out with $1.1 million, turn in his frenetic Valley life in for a slower one on the beach with his wife and two children, and finally live the life he's supposed to live. Or so he thinks. Before he can collect his cash and get outta Dodge, all hell breaks loose. Dan is kidnapped by a gang of tiny IT nerds who threaten to get him fired before the options can vest, stalked by a potentially murderous corporate security muscle man, and confronted with the possible disintegration of his marriage, all while his sociopath neighbor, Crazy Larry, threatens to ruin everything. . . .

Side-splittingly funny and full of larger-than-life characters, Cash Out is like Office Space as reimagined by the creators of The Hangover—a sly caper gone outrageously, unforgettably awry.

Reviews

A former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, Dan Jordan is just days from cashing out $1.1 million in FlowBid stock. The money will enable him to leave a job and a company he despises and build a better life for his family, somewhere on a beach. But as he limps from a doctor’s office following a vasectomy, he’s abducted by three elfin but enraged IT geeks, who blackmail him. Soon after, a thuggish stranger throws him through a glass door into a supermarket freezer. Both attacks threaten his dream and even his wife and kids. Debut-novelist Bardsley, a former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, succeeds grandly in making Silicon Valley a place of intrigue and dangerous head cases and hard cases. Even Jordan’s neighbors are grotesquely demented and creepily scary. FlowBid is a spectacularly toxic corporate zoo fueled by narcissism, hubris, self-aggrandizement, mendacity, and lack of scruples. A careening plot, plenty of action, outrageous bad guys, an otherworldly milieu, and many laughs make Cash Out a must-read for crime lovers with a taste for the bizarre. --Thomas Gaughan

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062127713
• ISBN 13: 9780062127716
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400