Acknowledgments

My editor at the now deceased Portfolio, Kyle Pope, encouraged me at the start, as I set off to retrace my steps back to Wall Street. Brandon Adams generously offered his help digging out strange facts and figures and proved to be so smart about the subject that I half-wondered if perhaps he, instead of I, should be writing the book. Among other treasures he unearthed was A. K. Barnett-Hart, a Harvard undergraduate who had just written a thesis about the market for subprime mortgage-backed CDOs that remains more interesting than any single piece of Wall Street research on the subject. Marc Rosenthal served as my jungle guide in the netherworld of subprime lending, and the inner workings of the rating agencies' models, and could not have been more generous with his time or his insight. Al Zuckerman, at Writers House, represented this book ably, as he has my others. Several people read all or part of this manuscript and offered useful advice: John Seo, Doug Stumpf, my father, Tom Lewis, and my wife, Tabitha Soren. Janet Byrne performed an almost startlingly thorough, energetic, and intelligent job copyediting the manuscript, and also proved to be an ideal reader. Starling Lawrence at W. W. Norton, who has edited all but one of my books, and who edited Liar's Poker, was his usual wise and wonderful self.

I've found it impossible to write a decent nonfiction narrative without unusually deep cooperation from my subjects. Steve Eisman, Michael Burry, Charlie Ledley, Jamie Mai, Vincent Daniel, Danny Moses, Porter Collins, and Ben Hockett allowed me to enter their lives. At some unquantifiable risk to themselves, they shared with me their thoughts and feelings. For that I'm eternally grateful.