The Bonfire of The Vanities
Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street bond trader with too much debt and too little judgment, takes a wrong turn off the Bronx expressway and sets in motion a prosecution, a tabloid frenzy, and a city eager to punish someone who looks like success. Wolfe's novel is a long, loud argument about class, race, and media in 1980s New York, written by a man who wore a white suit to the party.FSG's edition preserves the full text, which Wolfe researched by riding around with police and judges until the detail felt criminal itself. The satire is broad, the prose is maximalist, and the social diagnosis is often accurate in ways that make the comedy uncomfortable. A big American novel in the tradition of big American novels that refuse to apologize for their size. It is for readers who miss the novel as public event, and who can stand a little excess if the diagnosis is accurate.
