MICHAEL CULP TELLS TALES

Culp, former head of research at Prudential Securities and PaineWebber, is getting ready to self-publish Conflicted, a novel about life inside a bull market Wall Street research department.

Culp, former head of research at Prudential Securities and PaineWebber, is getting ready to self-publish Conflicted, a novel about life inside a bull market Wall Street research department. “Part of what made me write it is that no one had really done it before,” says Culp, who retired from PaineWebber after its acquisition by Swiss bank UBS in 2000. “Liar’s Poker was about traders and bankers. Barbarians at the Gate was mostly investment bankers. Nobody had really done anything on Wall Street research, so I thought I could add some value there.” The book, for which Culp began making notes during his last few years in the business, is scheduled to hit bookstores nationwide early next month. The author won’t disclose anything about the plot, but he admits that “the writing was much more difficult than I expected it to be.” The characters, says Culp, are composites of real people he encountered throughout his career. But his old colleagues needn’t worry about Eliot Spitzer finding his next Jack Grubman in Conflicted. “Everyone will think they’re in the book, but the truth is, they’re not. There are types of people, but no character is based strictly on any one person. It’s a novel, a fantasy,” Culp says.

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