“Banker Without Portfolio” or Writer Without a Story?

I think Banker Without Portfolio: The Ugly Truth Everyone Needs to Know, by Philip P. Gbormittah is meant to be inspirational. Certainly, Gbormittah proclaims his love of Jesus loudly and attributes the little success he has had and all of his upstanding morals to the grace of God, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. The author makes himself out to be altruistic and morally unblemished, praying for God to meet all of his needs, but after a decade at a banking institution, to still not have received a raise in grade and income makes it seem as if his prayers aren’t really being answered.

The book cover is misleading, or perhaps misrepresentative of the true content, since this memoir is written by an author whose skin is a different color than that on the cover photo. Gbormittah might be missing out on a huge opportunity here, for had he played up his discrimination in the work place as an issue of color in today’s market, he might have had a best seller, even without improvements in writing style.

On the last pages, the author summarizes, “My love life suffered. My nuclear family relationships suffered.” But I have to ask why we didn’t see any of this throughout the story? It wasn’t until almost half way through the book that we learned he was married, and we never get to meet his wife or get a description of her.

Discrimination in the world of high finance is the theme, but the two dimensional character we get here doesn’t allow us to really care about the injustice of it because the character doesn’t feel human, and that’s bad because he is a real character. Although the story is about the author’s professional life, to get a glimpse of his personal life would have made for a more well rounded character, who we could actually care about. Let us meet the wife instead of just hearing about her? How did he feel toward her. We don’t know, because Gbormittah doesn’t allow readers to be privy to this information.

We don’t get to see him as a loving, indifferent, or abusive husband. He could be any of them, and it might have made a difference in how much we readers are willing to invest in the character, how much we care about what happens. The only side of him we do see a little of is his professional side, how he interacts in the workplace, and even then we’re only allowed a small glimpse. But even then, the majority of what we know, we only know because we are told, rather than shown, these things.

As it is, Banker Without Portfolio: The Ugly Truth Everyone Needs to Know does a lot of telling us what happened, but very little showing. There is lots of conflict, but very little resolution and no reason for readers to care. I can only give it two quills.

Kaye gives honest book reviews and she does not charge for them. If you have a book you would like reviewed contact Kaye at kayebooth[at]yahoo[dot]com.