Format: Hard cover with dust jacket
ISBN: 978-1-60639-003-0
Author: William C. Pack
Pages: 476
The Bottom of the Sky
by William C. Pack
The Bottom of the Sky, a debut novel, is an aching rags-to-riches family saga that springs from rural Montana squalor into the power chambers of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The story contrasts the 30-year struggles of an abused sister and brother who, after one abandons the other, seek to claim themselves from their abhorrent legacy. This bare-knuckled tour de force deals head-on with childhood shame, promiscuity, prejudice, Wall Street’s rape of Main Street, genius, madness and violence. It is a tale of extraordinary sacrifice, of discovery, of redemption.
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About the Author
Born in a rural Montana mining town, William C. (Bill) Pack grew up in an environment beset by addiction, abuse, poverty, and mental illness. At 15 years old the courts emancipated him. At 16 he dropped out of high school. At 17 he married and at 18 he became a father. He worked variously as a truck driver, a bartender, a fry cook, a dock worker, and a broadcast ad-man. When he was 21 he began a successful career as a broker with Merrill Lynch in Billings, Montana. A few years later he was divorced from a woman with whom his wife of two decades now occasionally yucks it up on the phone, but that's not important. Anyway, he was broke.
With his brokerage license and GED, Bill moved to Silicon Valley where he rose to become the youngest of 25 Executive VP/Divisional Directors at Citigroup Smith Barney, the largest financial concern on earth at that time. His business and financial acumen became renowned and respected. Bill ran a division managing billions of dollars and met regularly with people who were then or are now the chief executives of the world’s largest financial firms. He spoke to thousands of investment professionals and investors, sharing podiums with a Presidential chief economic adviser, a governor, the executive director of the California’s Debt Advisory Commission, and many other notables. For his skill and fairness, Bill received a prestigious three-year appointment with the NASD (now FINRA), the S.E.C.’s enforcement partner of rules and regulations on Wall Street. Given the subsequent wreckage in capital markets, clearly Bill had either no influence or a poor one. On the side, he was CEO of a business associated with Beatrice Foods that dealt in milk and doughnuts.
Through Menttium 100, Bill served as a volunteer mentor for female executives at Hewlett Packard and at JPMorgan. He has donated his time and funds to many charities, particularly women’s and children’s advocacy groups.
When Bill’s health failed, he quit Wall Street to pursue lifelong goals. At 43 he took the SAT college entrance exams and earned acceptance into Stanford University as its oldest undergraduate at that time, but he looked to be 38, tops. He became Stanford’s lone undergraduate director for an archaeological project and won the Annual Reviews Prize in Anthropological Sciences for his thesis. In three years he graduated college, Phi Beta Kappa (la-te-da), during which time he published a poem under the reverse pen name, Eman Nep. Shortly afterward, Saints and Patrons, his first short story, was published. The Bottom of the Sky is Bill’s first novel.
Bill and his wife have mostly grown children, some of whom are self-supporting. When he’s not in Montana, he lives in Northern California. He has a big dog and two more pairs of blue jeans than necessary.
This bio is all true. The book is all fiction. Really.
Click here to see an interview of Bill Pack at Forbes.
Press Release
The Bottom of the Sky, a breathtaking debut novel, chronicles a three-decade family saga from rural Montana squalor to the power and wealth of Wall Street.
Riverbend Publishing proudly announces the June 10, 2009, publication of William C. Pack’s debut novel, The Bottom of the Sky, a tour-de-force family saga about an abused sister and brother and the scars, lingering guilt, and buried secrets that follow them throughout their lives. After one sibling abandons the other, the raw and tender story travels to Wall Street, which provides the novel with its fast-paced action and suspense. It is a gritty tale that deals head on with incest, prejudice, genius, madness, and Wall Street’s secret ways of making obscene profits with other people’s money.
The Bottom of the Sky is told through the lives of Levi Monroe and his sister, Lam. It is packed with memorable characters such as Crazy Marilyn, an oddball secretary with a heart of gold; and Gary Crawford, a powerful boss whose treachery and debauchery hide behind the chic façade of a Master of the Universe.
While the Wall Street story provides much of the novel’s pacing and suspense, the horror and shame of childhood abuse is always simmering as Levi and Lam survive in very different ways. In the novel’s surprising climax, their lives merge in sacrifice and redemption.
Whether describing the dusty confines and eccentric customers of a Montana saloon or the ostentatious offices and fraudulent deals of corporate titans, Pack’s writing is pitch perfect. His precise knowledge of these disparate worlds comes from his own life.
Pack grew up in poverty in rural Montana, became emancipated from his parents at age 15, slept on floors and worked odd jobs until landing a job as a stock broker for Merrill Lynch. He used hard work, business prowess, and an uncanny intuition for timing market swings to quickly rise to prominence. At 36 he became the youngest EVP/divisional director at Citigroup Smith Barney. Pack also served as an arbitrator and an appellate arbitrator while serving an appointment on the District Conduct Committee of the NASD, a securities regulation enforcement partner of the SEC, where he studied and resolved securities schemes.
Everything about The Bottom of the Sky is refreshingly unexpected—the plot, the language, the human insights, even the author himself. It is a very impressive debut novel that reveals an uncommon understanding of men and women—their instincts, strengths, and weaknesses—as it takes readers on a page-turning journey of profound destiny.
Reviews
Finalist for 2009 National Best Books Awards
"Kudos for William Pack. The Bottom of the Sky may be a first novel, but the quality of the writing is that of a well seasoned pro with deep insight into the characters and a story that is sure to move you. From Wall Street to Main Street, Pack takes us on a journey or exploration and shows us the pitfalls and potential of the human spirit while giving the reader an insider's peak at our current economic and social situation."
—Barry Kibrick, Host of Between the Lines, syndicated on PBS affiliates around the country.
Watch Bill Pack on the PBS show Between the Lines:
"Pack writes with intensity and passion, achieving a lyric quality, particularly in descriptions of the Montana landscape. His deadpan descriptions of characters—and especially female ones—often made me laugh out loud, while his rendering of both physical and mental anguish left me drained and tearful."
—Dr. Andrea A. Lunsford, Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford University
"This fall’s choice for One Book Billings, The Bottom of the Sky “is no light read.” Pack fiercely portrays the lives of Levi and Lam, who, born into an abusive home, search for security and love. Lam never leaves Roundup, but flees instead into the arms of addiction and promiscuity. Levi runs too—and crouches behind the greedy walls of Wall Street. Suffering from an illness and a tattered marriage, Levi retreats home. There, his aging father, the book’s Boogie Man, makes it frighteningly clear how Levi can finally fulfill his promise to “always be there” for Lam. But it will mean Levi must commit one more necessary sin." —Yellowstone Valley Woman Magazine
Debut 'Sky' soars on Pack's skills
Roundup native William C. Pack's debut novel, "The Bottom of the Sky," reads like a top-notch book from a well-seasoned author far into a career. His strong development of characters and vivid use of landscape are evident from the opening lines of the prologue of the book, which is set primarily in Roundup; Billings, where he grew up; and California, where Pack now lives when not in Bozeman.
—Billings Gazette
Click here to read the rest of the review...
"The Bottom of the Sky is a powerful novel about a brother and sister, Levi and Lam Monroe. Based in Pack's birthplace, Roundup, Montana, readers in that area will love reading about landmarks in and around Roundup and Billings.
Pack is a talented writer who takes his main characters from an abused childhood in the countrified setting of Roundup in the 1970s to California's sophisticated Silicon Valley and back again. He brilliantly weaves a 30-year saga of childhood disappointments giving way to the treachery of the financial business and Wall Street for Levi and more local problems for Lam. Filled with some heartache and tragedy, Pack's sometimes brutal writing captures the reader's interest and holds it to the very end.
This book is recommended, not only for those with ties to Montana, but for anyone who enjoys a good read. It will be available for purchase on June 10 at any bookstore. Anyone wanting to pre-order a copy may do so at bookstores or online at Barnes & Noble.com or Amazon. Those wanting a first edition copy must order soon before the first edition is sold out."
—Roundup Record-Tribune
"Bill Pack has written an intensely brutal novel about treachery – the internal treachery that permeates the contemporary financial services industry – it is now worse than the insider imagined – and the treason of extended familial sexual abuse. It is raw, but redemptive as Pack’s protagonist Levi Monroe finds his final reward at The Bottom of the Sky. It’s a good read; you’ll recognize the landscape."
—Jim Gransbery, former state editor for Lee Newspapers, Montana journalist
"The Bottom of the Sky by Bill Pack is a compelling 30-year saga of a boy named after blue jeans, Levi, an impoverished, brilliant young man from a small town in Montana who dreams a rise to riches will deliver him from his degraded circumstances and injured soul. It is brilliantly written. We watch Levi's growth in business and in life, neither of which goes smoothly. I was drawn to his dilemma with the good and evil of Wall Street. The character is both beautiful and tragic in his journey to top management in the brokerage industry.
—Donald Shagrin, retired former Group President, Citigroup Smith Barney
"It's (The Bottom of the Sky is) a timely story about Wall Street corruption, and how it mars everyone seduced by its plush light - even an honest man trying to stay sane in the House of Greed. While we cheer for Levi's rise from the sepia tones of the rural West, it's would only be a rags-to-riches story if Horatio Alger had devoted years to therapy: when the world finally breaks your way, is that really the point? Do we ever really leave those rags behind?"
—Jodi Upton, multiple national award-winning journalist
“I read this many-layered novel more slowly than any book in recent memory, partly to luxuriate in the rich use of language and sharp realization of character, and partly to delay my exit from the intricately wrought and curiously gripping worlds of Levi and Lam Monroe. Pack's skilled portrayal of the pain and secret thoughts of abused women is eerily perceptive, as though he knows things he could not know. A complete Wall Street outsider, I was fascinated by his accessible story of financial treachery--a story as timely as today's headlines. Most impressively, his luminous, tragic illustration of the quest for purpose, of heroism, of sacrifice reaches the Dickensesque. Pack's writing and his vision are nothing if not brilliant. I can't believe he's walking around like the rest of us.”
—Rosalie Maggio, bestselling author of more than 20 novels and nonfiction books.
“Pack’s first novel is a poignant tale of loss and redemption as well as one of compelling action with appeal for both genders, a natural for the best seller lists. The Bottom of the Sky is an extraordinary look into two worlds, Wall Street greed and Montana poverty and abuse. The characters are richly drawn and quite unforgettable and the plot, both intriguing and touching, not an easy feat. One of those rare books that is a literary page turner with a language and style similar to the best of Pat Conroy but with a western twist. A new talent has emerged in Saratoga that we will clearly hear more from.”
—Jean Lin, author of Breathing Rice - An East-West Love Story
“[The Bottom of the Sky] offers up endless curiosity and complexity. William Pack blends the story of a young man with a hectic past into the spicy stock of Wall Street. He genuinely and skillfully describes the insides of the financial services industry. Having been there allows him to tell it like it is and definitely keeps you on edge through to the very end. At this skill level, it is hard to believe this is his debut. I most eagerly await more from him.”
—David Standridge, retired Group President, Shearson Lehman Brothers
“William Pack has written a powerful and poignant story that draws you into the saga of Levi Monroe’s life and doesn’t let you go. I found Pack’s writing to be wonderfully descriptive and engaging. I fear it may be a long time before I find another book that captures my attention so completely. You don’t have to be a Wall Street insider or a cowboy from Montana to appreciate The Bottom of the Sky.
—Theodore E. Gildred, U.S. Ambassador (Retired)
The Bottom of the Sky is a powerful novel about a brother and sister, Levi and Lam Monroe. Based in Pack's birthplace, Roundup, Montana, readers in that area will love reading about landmarks in and around Roundup and Billings.
Pack is a talented writer who takes his main characters from an abused childhood in the countrified setting of Roundup in the 1970s to California's sophisticated Silicon Valley and back again. He brilliantly weaves a 30-year saga of childhood disappointments giving way to the treachery of the financial business and Wall Street for Levi and more local problems for Lam. Filled with some heartache and tragedy, Pack's sometimes brutal writing captures the reader's interest and holds it to the very end.
This book is recommended, not only for those with ties to Montana, but for anyone who enjoys a good read.
—Phyllis Adolph, Roundup Record-Tribune
To hear a public radio interview with the author
An Interview on Voice of America
Debut has high ambition - Montanan’s first novel reads like seasoned effort
Missoula.com Magazine - page 66
Big Sky, Big Debut -- a review in Standford Magazine
A Review from Foreword Magazine
Other fiction and novel titles:
