The Bonfire of the Vanities is one of those books that isn't about finance, Wall Street or bond trading but often makes its way onto lists of books about those very same topics. On the surface, it's a satire and character study set in 1980s New York. Sherman McCoy is an up-and-coming WASP Wall Street trader who, in a series of mishaps and bad decisions, sees his life disintegrate. There is much else at play. The Bonfire of the Vanities is both quaint - in its description of local minorities especially - and oddly prescient. It's also one of the best books I've read in a long time.
It was a wrong number that started it. Sherman, married and a father, mistakenly dials his wife instead of his mistress. This small error ripples across Sherman's life. The self-titled Master of the Universe, head of bond trading at Pierce & Pierce (a Goldman Sachs stand-in perhaps) slowly loses his cool and starts doubting his abilities. This small lapsus triggers a newfound doubt in his mind. Is everything, from his lavish 5th Avenue apartment to his infidelity, really under control? Most importantly, he gets lost driving in the Bronx at night. As Sherman and Maria, his lover, search for an exit ramp, their way is blocked by two black teenagers, who may have it in for them. Maria hits the other with the car but the couple end up escaping. Once the machinery is set in motion, however, it's hard to stop.
Tom Wolfe deftly introduces several main characters whose lives coalesce in the end. Peter Fallow is an English expat and journalist. His alcoholism is on the verge of killing his career, but he lucks into a lead on a juicy story: a hit and run in the Bronx. Tommy Killian is a crafty defence attorney with Irish roots. He eventually picks up the McCoy case. Larry Kramer, an assistant district attorney, barely makes ends meet with the meagre government salary, but he uses his position to woo young female jurors. These actors, among several others, are so well conceived that The Bonfire of the Vanities barely needs a central plot thread. Wolfe originally wrote the story in the style of Charles Dickens: as individually released chapters in a monthly magazine. He needed every chapter to be self-contained and compelling.
Wolfe delights in showing the contradicting behaviours of his characters. Killian dresses in colourful pinstripe suits and showy hats but mutters "Whaddaya, whaddaya" under his breath and happily ventures into the grey areas of law. Kramer puts on a show, flexes his honed muscles and frames himself as the keeper of peace in the Bronx. In a hilarious scene, his pomp and posturing ruin a dinner date. He's so focused on entertaining that he forgets to watch his audience. Everywhere, male insecurity shows up like it's the 2010s.
Some of the chapters drag on - descriptions of laughter at a dinner party or a brief stint in jail - but this enhances the immersion rather than slowing down the narrative. This is by no means a short novel. Wolfe uses that length to its fullest. The Bonfire of the Vanities is a sweeping study of an era of life in New York with its players, its hustlers and its vanguard. The strangest part is how distant the 1980s feels. Some parts of the city were off-limits to the middle class due to the risk of crime. Racial tensions were high, not in an abstract modern way, but in a "there are protesters on our street corner"-way. Italians, Irish and Jews were notable cliques. Just 40 years ago, Americans still identified with their European descendants. Today, I imagine, that kinship is all but forgotten.
On a side note, an ill-advised Hollywood adaptation cast Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, the aristocratic socialite and financier, and Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow, the British reporter and drunkard. It was directed by Brian De Palma, better known for spy and gangster films like Mission: Impossible. I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds like a trainwreck. By all accounts, it was. Considering the girth of The Bonfire of the Vanities (it's a sturdy 700 pages), perhaps a 10 part Netflix show would do it justice. Who knows? The world certainly hasn't grown tired of finance yet.