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The Bonfire of the Vanities
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The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City and centers on four main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish Assistant District Attorney Larry Kramer, British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow and black activist Reverend Reginald Bacon.
The novel was originally a serial in the style of Charles Dickens' writings; it ran in 27 installments in Rolling Stone magazine starting in 1984.
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Encyclopedia
The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City and centers on four main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish Assistant District Attorney Larry Kramer, British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow and black activist Reverend Reginald Bacon.
The novel was originally a serial in the style of Charles Dickens' writings; it ran in 27 installments in Rolling Stone magazine starting in 1984. Wolfe heavily revised it before it was published in book form.
The novel was a bestseller and a phenomenal success, even in comparison with Wolfe's other books. The title is a reference to a historical event, the Bonfire of the Vanities, which took place in 1497, in Florence, Italy, when the city was under the rule of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola. The book's title is a reference to the vanities of New York society of the 1980s.
Historical background
Wolfe deliberately set out to make The Bonfire of the Vanities capture the essence of New York City in the 1980s. Wall Street in the 1980s was newly resurgent after almost the whole of the 1970s had been bad for stocks. The excesses of Wall Street were at the forefront of the popular imagination--captured in Oliver Stone's Wall Street and in non-fiction books like Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves and Barbarians at the Gate.
Beneath Wall Street's success, the city was a hot-bed of racial and cultural tension. Homelessness and crime in the city were growing. Several high-profile racial incidents polarized the city, particularly two black men who were murdered in white neighborhoods: Willie Turks, who was murdered in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn in 1982 and Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, Queens in 1986. In another episode that became a subject of much media attention, Bernhard Goetz became something of a folk-hero in the city—when a group of men tried to rob him on the subway, he pulled out a gun and shot them (non-fatally).
Writing and publication
Throughout his early career, Wolfe had planned to write a novel that would capture the wide spectrum of American society. Among his models was William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, which described the society of 19th century England. Wolfe remained occupied writing nonfiction books on his own and contributing to Harper's until 1981, when he ceased his other projects to work on the novel.
Wolfe began researching the novel by observing cases at the Manhattan Criminal Court and shadowing members of the Bronx homicide squad. While the research came easy, the writing did not immediately follow. To overcome his writers' block, Wolfe wrote to Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone, to propose an idea drawn from Charles Dickens and Thackeray. The Victorian novelists that Wolfe viewed as his models had often written their novels in serial installments. Wenner offered Wolfe around $200,000 to serialize his work. The deadline pressure gave him the motivation he'd hoped for, and from July 1984 to August 1985 each biweekly issue of Rolling Stone contained a new installment. Wolfe was not happy with his "very public first draft," and thoroughly revised his work. Even Sherman McCoy, the central character of the novel, changed—originally a writer, the book version cast McCoy as a bond trader. (Wolfe came up with the revised occupation after spending a day on the government-bond desk of Salomon Brothers, with many of the traders who later founded the legendary hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management) Wolfe researched and revised for two years. The Bonfire of the Vanities appeared in 1987. The book was a commercial and critical success, spending weeks on bestseller lists and earning praise from much of the literary establishment on which Wolfe had long heaped scorn.
Plot summary
The plot centers on Sherman McCoy, a young, cocky, married multi-millionaire, WASP bond trader on Wall Street. Wolfe's use of the term "WASP" to refer to McCoy is not without its difficulties. The name McCoy is Scottish or Scots-Irish in origin, and so is not Anglo-Saxon (English). Indeed, the novel makes it clear that McCoy was sensitive about his family history, since his grandfather was not a true "Knickerbocker" but had moved to New York from Tennessee, a Scots-Irish stronghold. Nonetheless, the McCoys, in their extravagant partying lifestyle and wasteful spending habits, which are described in detail, have fully adopted the WASP ethos. They have an upper East Side apartment, a Hamptons vacation home, and out of vanity will hire a costly limousine to drive them just one block, rather than have friends see them walking or taking a taxi. Sherman's self-absorbed, anorexic wife, Judy, is doing most of the spending. Sherman's life as a self-assumed "Master of The Universe" on Wall Street is destroyed when he and his mistress, Maria Ruskin, accidentally enter the Bronx at night while they are driving to Manhattan from Kennedy Airport. Finding the ramp back to the highway blocked by trash cans and a tire, Sherman exits the car to move the tire. When approached by two black youths whom they perceive as predators, Sherman and his mistress panic. Maria takes the wheel of the car and they flee, striking one of the youths (Henry Lamb).
Peter Fallow, a washed-up British drunkard and journalist for the tabloid City Light, is given the opportunity of a lifetime when he is persuaded to write a series of articles about the case of a young black man who has been the victim of a hit and run by a wealthy white driver. Fallow is skeptical as he suspects that he is being used by a local religious and political leader, Reverend Bacon, who is using the case to improve his own political standing among New York's black community. Bacon uses the mother of the now comatose victim of the hit and run to portray himself as a protector of the black community from the supposedly racist white establishment, and schemes to benefit financially through civil lawsuits against Sherman McCoy and the hospital that treated Henry Lamb.
When McCoy is identified as the owner of the car from the hit and run attack, Fallow begins a biased series of articles that insinuate Sherman McCoy's guilt (a series for which he is ultimately awarded a Pulitzer Prize). McCoy becomes the most hated man in New York City and the focus of relentless attacks from leftist demonstrators. Abe Weiss, a self-absorbed Bronx District Attorney up for re-election, decides that McCoy must be convicted by any means necessary (including obtaining false testimony from Sherman's mistress) so that he can use the conviction to persuade the black residents of New York City to re-elect him. Assisting him in this process is Assistant District Attorney Larry Kramer, who sees this as an opportunity to rise above his mundane personal and professional life, as well as a means to impress his new love interest, Shelly Thomas, who was a juror at a previous trial.
When Ruskin flees the country with another man in order to avoid having to admit to being the real driver, McCoy's private investigator discovers a recording of an incriminating (of Ruskin) conversation made by the landlord of Ruskin's apartment. McCoy uses the tape (which he claims to have recorded himself) to have the initial charges against him dropped. The main narrative of the novel ends with a near riot outside the courtroom in which McCoy loses his temper and almost knocks down several protesters.
In a fictional New York Times article at the end of the book, we learn that Fallow has married the daughter of City Light owner Gerald Steiner, Maria (the mistress) has escaped prosecution and remarried, and Kramer was removed from prosecuting McCoy's first trial due to a scandal involving prosecutorial misconduct (Kramer attempted to obtain Maria's former apartment in order to have a place to tryst with Shelly Thomas). While the first charges brought against McCoy are dismissed, he is subjected to a second indictment and trial (which ends in a hung jury), as well as a civil trial which he loses and appeals. Sherman McCoy is penniless and estranged from his wife and daughter as he awaits trial for vehicular manslaughter following the death of the youth injured by McCoy's car. The story closes with a final indictment of three key characters voiced by Tommy Killian, Sherman's former lawyer:
"If this case was being tried in foro conscientiae [in the court of the conscience], the defendants would be Abe Weiss, Reginald Bacon, and Peter Fallow of The City Light."
Style and content
Bonfire was Tom Wolfe's first novel. Wolfe's works before the novel were mostly non-fiction journalistic articles and books. His earlier short stories included Mauve Gloves & Madmen, and Clutter & Vine, from his book of the same name. His fiction and non-fiction styles have much in common; specifically a fascination with the seemingly fantastic stories and surprising details in American life. Like his previous writing, Bonfire fuses intrigue, plot, and sociological detail.
Wolfe did not intend his work to be a roman a clef; most characters in Bonfire are not fictionalized accounts of real-life figures. According to Wolfe, the characters are composites of many individuals and cultural observations. However, some characters were based on real people. Wolfe has acknowledged the character of Tommy Killian is based on New York lawyer Edward Hayes, to whom the book is dedicated. The character of Reverend Bacon is not indiscreetly based on the Reverend Al Sharpton and/or Jesse Jackson, who have both campaigned under the banner of eliminating racism, but whose methods have come under fire in recent years. It has also been suggested that the character of Peter Fallow is based on British expatriate journalist Christopher Hitchens. However, Hitchens himself has disputed this, saying that a more likely candidate is Anthony Haden-Guest. Additionally, it is likely that Gerald Steiner, the owner of the "City Light", is based on Australian media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.
In 2007, on the book's 20th anniversary of publication, The New York Times published a retrospective on how the city had changed since Wolfe's novel.
Adaptation
In 1990, Bonfire was adapted into a film starring Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, Kim Cattrall as his wife Judy, Melanie Griffith as his mistress Maria and Bruce Willis as journalist (and narrator of the film) Peter Fallow. The screenplay was written by Michael Cristofer. Wolfe was paid $750,000 for the rights. The film, however, was a commercial and critical flop.
Footnotes
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