On the Floor

The higher you fly, the further you have to fall

In the City, everything has a price. What's yours?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.

About the Author

Aifric Campbell was born in Ireland and grew up in Dublin. She later moved to Sweden where she completed a Linguistics degree and lectured in semantics. She subsequently spent thirteen years as an investment banker in London before leaving to study psychotherapy and creative writing, most recently at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in Sussex with her husband and son. Her previous two novels,The Semantics of Murder [9781846686580] and The Loss Adjustor[9781846687310], are also published by Serpent's Tail.

Reviews

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

'Sexy, sad, riven with longing,The Loss Adjustor confirms a talent of unusual promise', Nicholas Shakespeare

'Campbell writes with lambent precision . . .The Loss Adjustor is a mesmerising study of a woman clinging to the knotted cord of adolescence, uncertain whether to go backwards or forwards', Guardian

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