If you want to wallow in the misery of others, and feel a bit better about your own troubles, you can pick up a book and read about the hedge fund manager who's gone bust and finds that his wife only stayed with him for the money and the money's gone and so is she and he's hit rock bottom etc. etc.
Comes a new protagonist for some author's pen. We'll call him Sean.
He's of humble stock, familiar with the trades, and he sees an opportunity to make a bit of cash in the gravel business up in Fermanagh. A good author could instill some tension relating to The Troubles or sectarianism as our Sean finds a little success.
He parlays his gravel pit into cement and from cement he's into construction and that leads to investments in hotels and chemicals and he's rolling in it. The writer composing this little novel would make Sean a gambler, possessed of certain instincts and not averse to risk.
Quite a page-turner in the making, as the protagonist climbs to the top with his wife at his side, raising five children and supporting her man through all the nail-biting. For a good novel, there must be some squabbles with the children, perhaps a little sibling rivalry between Son #1 and Son #2 over who will take over the empire, or whether it's wise to sink so much capital into Anglo Irish Bank.
But a good protagonist needs a tragic flaw, and Sean has grown blinders as the novel progresses.
He believes that the skyrocketing values of real estate will go on forever, that there is nothing but light ahead. Our character invests in hotels and then banks, but he's blind to the shaky foundations that underpin his empire. Like many a gambler, he starts to lose and then throws more money into the kitty, thinking that he'll hit a winning hand on the next deal, or the next.
When he reaches into his pocket to cover his bets, he finds that his pockets are empty and the billions of euro he thought he had have all been pissed away. The writer puts the family into turmoil, a roiling mass of conflicting emotions and anger and pity. Even Sean's business partners, men he'd kept in the dark while he tried to right the sinking ship, turn against him in a bid to save their own skins.
No good novel should end on such a sad note. There must be redemption.
Sean Quinn, our protagonist, was Ireland's richest man. Today he is bankrupt. But all is not over in his story.
Very cleverly, he declared bankruptcy in Northern Ireland, where English law will allow him to go back into business in a year, rather than waiting for twelve years as decreed by Irish law.
For now, he's down. But by God, the man's not out.
Now there's a positive note on which to end our story.
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