The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen

He wants to make money in the highly competitive banana business. To demonstrate Zemurray’s work ethic, The Fish That Ate the Whale begins Zemurray’s journey from his first step onto American soil. Everything Zemurray achieves is through his own merit, not networking. Cohen observes that Zemurray has no personal connections, qualifications, or leads when he arrives in the United States. If he wants to achieve his dream of becoming rich, he must work his way up from the bottom of the ladder. Zemurray understands that no one owes him anything in life. Zemurray exploits individuals, business practices, and even politics to achieve his goals, his story highlighting the dark side of the American Dream-aspiration often breeds exploitation and corruption. As Zemurray fights for every opportunity he gets, his actions negatively affect others around him. Although Zemurray succeeds in building a commercial empire for himself, Cohen reminds readers that this success comes at a cost. According to Cohen, Zemurray embodies the American Dream. The book chronicles his rise from poverty to corporate domination. By the time he dies in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he is one of the most influential men in the world.

He arrives in America in 1891 without a dollar to his name. When the book begins, he is a poor Jewish immigrant struggling to feed himself. The Fish That Ate the Whale is the story of Samuel “The Banana Man” Zemurray. Critics claim that Cohen is one of the most significant cultural and social historians writing in post-war twentieth-century America. A well-established New York Times bestselling nonfiction writer, he has worked alongside household names such as Terence Winter, Mick Jagger, and Martin Scorsese, and written for Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. Nominated for the Society of Midland Authors Award, the book tells the true story of a forgotten icon in America’s commercial history. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King (2012) is a work of nonfiction by Rich Cohen.

The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen