Real Time Economics

The Federal Reserve, not surprisingly, figures in a number of non-fiction accounts of the financial crisis.

Now comes the fiction: Union Atlantic, a first novel by short-story writer Adam Haslett, 39, to be published in late January, that revolves around a bank that figures it is “too big too fail.”

Set outside Boston, home of a huge bank called Union Atlantic, the plot features — among other things — the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, widower Henry Graves, and his increasingly crazy sister. After some badly conceived trades put the survival of Union Atlantic at risk, its CEO comes face to face with Graves (even though a Boston bank ordinarily would be the province of the Boston Fed).