About the Book.
In The Vegan, Andrew Lipstein challenges our notions of virtue with a brilliant tale of guilt, greed, and how far we’ll go to be good.
Herschel Caine is a soon-to-be master of the universe. His hedge fund, built on the miracle of machine learning, is inches away from systematically extracting obscene profits from the market. His SoHo offices (shoes optional, therapy required) have been fine-tuned to reel in curious investors.
But on the night of May 12, at his elegant Cobble Hill townhouse, he has something else on his mind―the dinner party he and his wife have devised to woo their new A-list neighbors. When the evening fizzles, Herschel indulges in a devilish prank that goes horrifically awry, plunging him into a tailspin of guilt and regret. As Herschel’s tightly constructed world starts to unravel, he clings to the moral clarity he finds in the last place he’d expect: a sudden connection with a neighborhood dog.
A wildly inventive, reality-bending trip, The Vegan holds a mirror up to its reader and poses a question only a hedge fund manager could ask: Is purity a convertible asset? The more Herschel disavows his original sin, and the more it threatens to be revealed, the more it becomes something else entirely―a way into a forgotten world of animals, nature, and life beyond words.
About the Author.
Andrew Lipstein is the author of Last Resort (FSG, 2022), a novel “you’ll think about . . . for weeks after you read the last pages” (Los Angeles Times). He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and son.
Carrie Sun was born in China and raised in Michigan. She holds an MFA in creative writing from The New School, and a double BS in math and finance from MIT. She lives in Jersey City with her husband. Private Equity is her first book.
Daniel Lefferts is a writer living in the Hudson Valley. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and has taught writing at Columbia and Rutgers. His debut novel, Ways and Means, was published in February 2024 and was described by the Wall Street Journal as a "wildly entertaining drama of ambition and consequence."
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian is a journalist who writes about the cracks in the nation-state system. She is the author of The Cosmopolites, an investigation into the global market for citizenship, and The Hidden Globe, a tour of the world's strangest jurisdictions. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.