Publishers Weekly
07/04/2022
One of America’s leading financial institutions is rife with misogyny, homophobia, and racism, according to this scintillating exposé. Higgins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, documents her 20-year rise from trainee to the highest-ranking woman in her department, explaining that the toxic environment nearly destroyed her marriage and family life, even as she was seduced by the huge income and prestige. She documents a workplace culture of grueling hours, drunken parties, and commonplace sexual harassment and discrimination, and notes that when her twin girls were born, she was strongly discouraged from breastfeeding at work. Later, when her son was born, she was in a more senior position and did breastfeed and pump in the office but was mocked by “mooing” sounds on her way to the lactation room. And after a difficult miscarriage, Higgins was pressured to return to work well before her physician advised it, causing even more health difficulties. Setting a brisk pace, Higgins packs the narrative with dramatic scenes but somewhat distracts from her larger point with gossipy details about an affair with one of her bosses. Still, this is a persuasive warning that Wall Street still has a long way to go to become a more human and equitable workplace. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Higgins is unafraid to, as they say, ‘go there,’ taking us into the bathroom and elsewhere for spilled breast milk, rivulets of child diarrhea and vomiting episodes courtesy of her sister, her children, herself. Indeed there is something effluvial about the entire book, as if the #MeToo movement provided her, narratively speaking, with a stiff dose of ipecac syrup. It’s gross, but propulsive, and also — in the case of a graphic miscarriage during her ferry commute, to which her boss displays a stunning but all-too-believable indifference — brave and poignant. At a time when many white-collar workers are lobbying for the right to keep Zooming in sweatpants, Bully Market is a reminder of when offices were stage sets in the sky for dark, outrageous human drama.” —New York Times
“Jamie Fiore Higgins’s Bully Market is a riveting and powerful story of one woman’s experience in finance, as she climbs the corporate ladder amidst harassment and discrimination. You might argue that this book isn’t even about Goldman Sachs, but about the behaviors and patterns we’re willing to accept across all of corporate America.” —Gretchen Carlson, acclaimed journalist, co-founder of Lift Our Voices, and female empowerment advocate
“On Wall Street, it’s unusual to make it into the club of Goldman managing directors, as [Jamie Fiore Higgins] did in 2012, and almost unheard of to tell the world what goes on there. The book will make Fiore Higgins one of the most senior people to do it.” —Bloomberg
“Jamie Fiore Higgins’s entrancing firsthand account of her time as a high-up managing director at Goldman Sachs is a breath of fresh air—not for the stories of abuse and discrimination, which are maddening—but for the overdue chance to finally bring the truth to light. With grace and precision, she shows the hypocrisy of finance and how it and other industries can, and must, change for the next generation.”
—Emily Chang, author of Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley and host of Bloomberg Technology
“Higgins recounts Goldman Sachs’ toxic work environment in jaw-dropping detail, rivaled only by the remarkable candor with which she reveals her own culpability in tolerating such behavior. A brave and vivid portrait of a destructive corporate culture and toxic sexism and the terrifying toll it took on Higgins and her family.” —Booklist
“[One of America’s leading financial institutions is rife with misogyny, homophobia, and racism, according to this] scintillating exposé.... A persuasive warning that Wall Street still has a long way to go to become a more human and equitable workplace.” —Publishers Weekly
“In her debut memoir, Fiore Higgins mounts a scathing critique of the sexist, racist, homophobic, and elitist culture pervading Goldman Sachs... A disturbing portrait of power and greed.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Bully Market is essential to understanding the power dynamics at play in one of the most influential and powerful industries in the world. It’s shocking, saddening, and infuriating by turn, but empowering in the way that it imagines what the future of the workplace can look like.”
—Linda Babcock, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University and bestselling author of The No Club and Ask for It
"Bully Market exposes the #MeToo movement's unfinished work on Wall Street and should be required reading in the Goldman Sachs C-Suite. Working women will see themselves in Jamie Fiore Higgins' seering story, cheering on the daughter of immigrants and mother of four as she overcomes misogyny and discrimination to become a Managing Director at the storied firm. From assault to punishing women for becoming mothers, Bully Market shines a bright light on Goldman's broken culture and all of corporate America's failure to keep its promises to women—and challenges business leaders to heed Higgins' call for transformative change and equality." —Meighan Stone, former president of the Malala Fund and author of Awakening: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women's Rights
"In this engrossing book, Fiore Higgins takes us on her turbulent journey from a working-class immigrant family to an unprincipled upper echelon of Wall Street. Her personal story exposes the sickening pull of money in a society devoid of a safety net and wired for profit maximization, and the misogynistic, racist, and homophobic work environment it fuels. Bully Market is an urgent call to rectify economic systems that create extreme inequality and workplace cultures that talk a good game but remain destructive for anyone who does not 'fit the mold'." —Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro, authors of Power, for All
Kirkus Reviews
2022-07-02
A former Goldman Sachs managing director lays out the noxious culture of the storied investment firm.
In her debut memoir, Fiore Higgins mounts a scathing critique of the sexist, racist, homophobic, and elitist culture pervading Goldman Sachs, where she spent a long career. Although she had hoped to become a social worker, her parents pressed her to find a higher-paying job; immigrants who struggled to pay her hefty tuition at Bryn Mawr, they wanted a return on their investment. Fiore Higgins had no interest in finance, but she was inspired by a Goldman Sachs recruiter who encouraged women to apply. The company’s ethos, she said, was “Minds. Wide. Open.” However, from her first days as a trainee, the author realized she was out of place at the firm, where most of her colleagues were young, male, White, and wealthy. The macho atmosphere, far from being open and welcoming, was toxic. Still, she wanted to prove that she could excel. Diagnosed with scoliosis as a child, she was used to being underestimated. “All I ever wanted to do,” she admits, “was break out of the boxes of limitations that others put me into.” She worked hard and received praise, promotions, and bonuses beyond her expectations. After the first year, expecting a bonus of $40,000, she got $80,000. Another year, her total compensation went from $500,000 to $1 million. But it came at great moral cost, as Fiore Higgins neglected her husband and children, failed to support women colleagues, and reveled in her power. “Like the long-bullied kid on the playground who becomes the bully,” she realizes, “I had become a part of the cycle of abuse.” Longing to quit, she and her husband devised a “Spreadsheet of Freedom” to indicate when they would have enough money for her to walk away. The author never reveals the sum, but despite a seven-figure salary and bonuses, she felt compelled to stay for nearly 20 years.
A disturbing portrait of power and greed.
