Tag: 2011

Confessions of a Shopaholic

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Kinsella, Sophie. Confessions of a Shopaholic.New York: Random House, 2001.

Confessions of a Shopaholic was a pain in the ass to read. I never learned to like the lead character, Rebecca Bloomwood. When we first meet Becky she is living far beyond her means, recklessly spending money she does not have. She constantly lies to family, friends, coworkers, strangers, anyone who gets in her way of a good shopping spree. She is the epitome of irresponsible. As the debt continues to pile up and the phone calls and letters from credit card agencies and banks become more frequent Becky starts to make feeble, half-witted attempts to remedy the situation. She has her pride so she cannot admit to anyone she is in financial trouble, at least not right away. She also has the ability to rationalize every extravagant purchase.
As her situation worsens she remembers something her father once said about saving money. She first tries the tactic of Cutting Back. Packing lunches instead of always eating out, going to museums instead of trendy clubs, and so on. But after one failed attempt at making dinner at home – a complicated curry – she moves onto Plan B (another of her father’s euphemisms) – Make More Money. Her scheme is to either land an eligible millionaire bachelor and learn to like him later, or get another job –  something that would allow her to get an employee discount and do minimal actual work. Needless to say neither of those schemes plan out either. She fails miserably at every halfhearted effort to straighten her life out. The smallest setback allows her to abandon the effort with great relief and, like a true addict, she is able to rationalize her continued spending. She isn’t bothered by the fact she’s a fake to her friends, a fraud at work and a farce to her family. When the truth is finally revealed to her roommate she allows her roommate (and only obvious friend) to work at a side job in Becky’s name just so that Becky can have the extra income. When really pushed at her job Becky doesn’t know what she’s talking about (ironically working as a financial journalist). She let’s her parents think she is being stalked when really it’s the bank manager’s relentless debt collection pursuit.

The problem with Rebecca Bloomwood’s plight is that it quickly loses appeal early in the story. In the beginning her situation is comical. Her justifications for spending are humorous. Yet, the longer she tells lies, the longer she disregards the seriousness of her situation the less likable she becomes. Her character development is shallow and superficial and it stays that way throughout the entire story. The final disappointment is that Becky doesn’t really change. There are no great epiphanies, no lessons learned.

Book Trivia: Confessions of a Shopaholic was published as Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic everywhere except the U.S. and India.

Author Fact: Sophie Kinsella is a pen name for Madeleine Wickham.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “Chick Lit” (p 53). No brainer there.

A Child’s Garden of Verses

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Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson. A Child’s Garden of Verses. Boulder: Shambhala, 1979.

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson is one of those books that remained as a constant in my house growing up. Somehow, side by side with unlikely titles such as Fear of Flying by Erica Jong and The World According to Garp by John Irving there A Child’s Garden of Verses sat. It had a permanent place on the shelf and never moved. As a child (I was ten when my 1979 edition was published) it was the illustrations by Charles Robinson that really captured my imagination. Simple illustrations like the title one for “Pirate Story” or more complicated ones like the one for “Garden Days.” I don’t know how I resisted the urge to fill the black and white line drawings with color.
When Natalie Merchant chose “The Land of Nod” as a poem to set to music for her newest album, Leave Your Sleep, it was if the simple verse took flight. Suddenly the poem spread glorious wings and soared with great majesty. It became lush and alive. It made me wish she had taken the entire collection of poems from A Child’s Garden of Verses and set them to music.
Like Natalie’sLeave Your Sleep, A Child’s Garden of Verses is the epitome of poetry for and about children. The imagination of a child grows wild and free among the pages. Hopes and fears are expressed as only children can. The sense of wonder and innocence resonates as reminders to all adults about how the world once was.

Point of amusement: just as I was drawn to the illustrations of Charles Robinson so were the publishers of A Child’s Garden of Verses. The back cover, usually reserved for praise for the author or an abstract about the text, sings the praises of illustrator Charles Robinson and ignore Robert Louis Stevenson completely.

Author Fact opinion: Stevenson and wife Fanny had one of the most romantic courtships I have ever read.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the introduction (pix). Nancy Pearl is confessing herself to be a “readaholic” and remembering the stories read to her as a young child.

Waiting to Exhale

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McMillan, Terry. Waiting to Exhale. New York: Pocket Books, 1993.

Unfortunately, I saw the movie before I read the book. This embarrasses me because I hate picturing the movie characters while reading. It traps me. I don’t like having someone else’s imagination dictate what I see in my own mind, but it can’t be helped this time around. Lela Rochon (who reminds me of Robin Givens), Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine and Gregory Hines have all been cast for me and there is nothing I can do about it.

This is the ultimate chick lit story. Four women, all in their mid to late 30s, all searching for something, have a friendship in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s that friendship that gets them through all the different circumstances they deal with. Okay, I’m being coy. The circumstances mostly involve men. They all want a man to call their own. That’s the one thing they all have in common (besides age and race). Sex and the relentless chase. They all want to be in a relationship solid enough to breathe easy in. Savannah is independent and a little jaded by men. She definitely reminded me of someone I know. Bernadine (Bernie) has been left by her husband for a younger woman, a white woman. Speaking of the movie, she has the scene we all can’t forget: torching her husband’s belongings in the back seat of his expensive vehicle, then selling everything else for a dollar at a tag sale. Robin’s story is told from her perspective. She is a little naive when it comes to men. She believes in the power of astrological signs and smooth lines. Gloria is my favorite. Single handedly raising her teenager son, the father of her child has just told her he is gay. Despite all that she has a good head on her shoulders.

Lines that made me laugh: “He needs to suffer for a while, long enough to realize that a woman’s love is a privilege not his right” (p 46), and “I would have loved to say “Let go of me and go home, you tub of lard,” but you just can’t say that kind of thing without hurting someone’s feelings” (p 55).

Author Fact: McMillan has a really cool website, but what’s even cooler is that she was influenced by libraries at a very young age.

Brook Trivia: Waiting to Exhaleis a best seller that was made into a movie in 1995.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. First in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Says” (p 12) and later in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 248).

Mrs. Dalloway

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Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1925.

I felt like I shouldn’t have had this book on my list at all. Nancy Pearl bearly makes reference to it in More Book Lust and it certainly isn’t one of her recommendations. In fact, she only mentions it in reference to another book. After spending several hours mucking through Woolf’s prose I feel I should go back to my Lust list and weed out the “unintentional” recommendations and put them on an “If You Really Care” list.

I didn’t care for Mrs. Dalloway (character OR book). In a nutshell the plot is one day in the life of a middle-aged Londoner as she goes about planning for a party. Nothing more than that. The style of writing is tedious as it is a stream of every character’s inner monologue and one must be careful of character switches for not everything is from the rambling point of view of Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway. The chronology of the story is also a maze of creativity as it bounces back and forth in time. A Wednesday in June post World War I is present day, here and now so to speak.
One detail of Mrs. Dalloway that I found myself fixated on is Mrs. Dalloway’s relationship with a man named Peter. As she goes through her day she thinks about him with regularity. He is the man Dalloway could have married but didn’t. I found myself wondering if she had regrets. Through all the ramblings it was hard to say with certainty she did.

Book trivia: Mrs. Dalloway is the product of two short stories melded together.

Author Fact: Virginia Woolf suffered from depression and at the age of 58 committed suicide by drowning.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Voice” (p 230). Pearl is actually recommending Our Kind by Kate Walbert. In Our Kind a book club is reading Mrs. Dalloway.

Dive From Clausen’s Pier

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Packer, Ann. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier. New York: Random House, 2002.

I have to start off by saying this seems to be the month for reading about selfish women. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is about Carrie Bell, a young woman who doesn’t really give a lot of thought to other people’s feelings. After her fiance is paralyzed from a diving accident (hence the title of the book) Carrie must decide if she can spend the rest of her life with a quadriplegic she doesn’t really love anymore. After the decision has been made the rest of the book is more of the same, Carrie steamrolling over people’s emotions while she forges ahead in search of what makes her happy. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is extremely well written. Character development is flawless. Carrie is supposed to make you angry. Her family and friends are appropriately hurt and slow to forgive. You may not agree with the character (I certainly didn’t when it came to her second big decision), but you will agree with the pages on which she comes to life.

Personal aside: Probably the person I connected with the best is Paul Frasier, better known as Kilroy. There was something magical and intriguing about his character. For days after finishing Dive From Clausen’s Pier I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Best lines: “How could you become anything without having wanted to be that thing first?” (p 227), and “Lane and I were like lines that intersected and then split apart again, without a pattern but with a kind of purpose” (p 281). I have a friendship like that. We can go for months without speaking, living those parallel lives, until one day our paths cross and it’s like we never were apart.

Author Fact: This is Packer’s first novel.

Book Trivia: The Dive From Clausen’s Pier was made into a Lifetime Original movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “First Book” (p 89) because indeed, The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is Ann Packer’s first novel. Also, in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ready, Set, Liftoff: Books to Ignite Discussion” (p 192). I would also agree with this selection because it’s the ultimate topic for discussion: what would YOU do?

Lord of the Flies

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Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee Books, 1954.

What high school English lit teacher hasn’t put Lord of the Flies on his or her syllabi? What student hasn’t read at least one excerpt from this book? I shudder to think classrooms have moved to the movie version, but if that means Golding’s story lives on, so be it.

This could be called the most chilling sociological experiment of all times (besides Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game.) What happens when you take the most prim and organized society (proper English boys from a prep school), hand it the suggestion of chaos and violence (they are escaping a nuclear war), then leave it to its own devices without guidance (a deserted island without adults)? All normalcy goes out the window when the boys try to build their own hierarchical, structured society. In a Darwinian approach some boys, the strongest & smartest, rise to the top while weaker boys become scapegoats and victims of paranoia. In the beginning the group is held together by necessity. They recognize the need for fairness and organization, especially if they want to be rescued. But all that vanishes when the younger boys become increasingly convinced there is a monster on the island. No amount of rationalizing can calm them. Fear and violence escalates until there is no turning back. All calm is lost to tragedy.

Probably the most frustrating part about the book was something very deliberate on Golding’s part. When the boys are finally rescued the Naval officer is embarrassed by the children, especially Ralph’s emotional breakdown when remembering how it all fell apart. You want the officer, the adult, to be more understanding, to take the boys more seriously.

Book Trivia: Lord of the Flies influenced musicians like U2 and Iron Maiden and sparked television parodies but a full length movie has yet to be made.

Author Fact: Golding won a Nobel Prize for literature.

Favorite line: “The group of boys looked at the conch with affectionate respect” (p 128).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade by Decade (1950s),” (p 177).

While I Was Gone

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Miller, Sue. While I Was Gone.

My mother borrowed this book from a house she manages. For that reason I needed to finish it before leaving the island. Piece of cake. I was able to read this, start to finish, in two days. Mostly because I found myself thinking about it long after I had put it down.

While the plot was amazing Jo Becker wasn’t a likable character for me. Which is probably what Sue Miller wanted from me. I found her to be deceitful, conniving, and more than a little self centered and selfish. Jo is a woman of lies; an easy liar. So much so that her everyday relationships are tinged with half truths and falsehoods. Even her daughters recognize her deceit and are sensitive to her phoniness. When an old roommate from Jo’s past resurfaces more lies are uncovered.
But it’s not her falsity that hangs like sour fruit. It’s her selfishness that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She misinterprets the intentions of the old roommate and begins to fantasize about an affair with him. When she thinks about how easy it would be to commit adultery she barely gives thought to whether or not her husband has ever thought about straying. When a terrible secret stands between Jo and having the affair she expects her husband to support her and not be upset by the turn of events.
The best part of While I was Gone was the character development of Jo’s husband. Watching Daniel struggle with jealousy and anger was like a metamorphosis. He emerges a different man.
This book made me question secrets. Which is worse? A half truth or a half lie?

Best line: “With the closing of the door I felt released from the awareness of his sorrow that had held me in his orbit” (p 8).

Author fact: Sue Miller has connections to Western Massachusetts.

Book Trivia: While I Was Gone was made into a 2004 movie starring Kirstie Alley.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Wayward Wives” (p 232).

Accounting for Murder

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Lathen, Emma. Accounting for Murder. New York: Pocket Books, 1974.

This seemed to go hand in hand with The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Both take place in New York on Wall Street. The big numbers game. I have to admit I was bored by this book. None of the characters interested me enough to care what happened to them (another similarity with The Bonfire of the Vanities). Each and every one of them seemed dull and flat. In addition the plot was slow moving and I kept asking myself  “where and when is this murder? I know this guy dies so when does it happen?” Accounting for Murder is supposed to focus on amateur silver-haired detective John Putman Thatcher and yet for the first 60 pages he’s barely in the story. Initially, he is invited to a lunch with Mr. Fortinbras who late winds up dead.

Author Fact: Emma Lathen is actually two authors collaborating as one. Mary Jane Latis (1927 – 1997) and Martha Hennissart (b. 1929 – ). Both women were businesswomen in the field of economics.

Book Trivia: Accounting for Murder is actually part of a series with banker and amateur detective John Putnam Thatcher as the main reoccurring character.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery: (p 117).

Daughter of Fortune

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Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune. New York: Perennial, 2000.

This took me three days to read thanks to a five hour car ride, an hour boat ride and an evening by the sea. Read the day before, the day of, and the day after Isabel Allende’s birthday.

Daughter of Fortune is the didactic tale of what happens when you become so obsessed with a thought, a feeling that you carry the obsession long after you remember why or what it was all about. This is the complicated saga of Eliza Sommers, raised as an orphan by a Victorian brother and sister – strict and unfeeling Jeremy and his spinster sister Rose. Secrets abound in Daughter of Fortune. When Eliza falls in love with delivery boy Joaquin Andieta her whole life changes. An obsession to be his “slave” claims her and compels her to follow him from Valparasio, Chile to California during the gold rush of 1849.

Best lines to remember: “Many years later, standing before a human head preserved in a jar of gin, Eliza would remember the first meeting with Joaquin Andieta and again experience the same unbearable anguish” (p 80). This line, if you remember it 150 pages later, gives away the entire story. Another line to remember, “The girl felt that she was opening like a carnivorous flower, emitting demonic perfumes to attract her man like a Venus’s-flytrap, crushing him, swallowing him, digesting him, and finally spitting out the splinters of his bones” (p 94) and one more, “‘I told you before that a fixation of the heart is very stubborn: it burrows into the brain and breaks the heart. There are many fixations but love is the worst'” (p 129). Wise words from the Machi.

Best word in the book: epizootic.

Author Fact: According to Allende’s website she has received 12 honorary doctorates. I enjoyed poking around the family photos the most.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s (food)” (p 73).


Corrections

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Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections. New York: Picador, 2001.

The Corrections tackles the global scope of economic crisis while microscopically analyzing the dynamics of a family in turmoil. This is Franzen’s criticism of society on multiple levels.The time line bounces around a family history to give the reader a complete profile of each family member; a sort of explanation for why they are the way they are, if you will. Mom Enid is a submissive housewife who feels trapped by her tyrannical husband, Alfred. And she is. Dad Alfred is a retired railroad engineer who suffers from the early stages of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Eldest son Gary is an alcoholic banker who thinks his life is being controlled by his wife and three sons and becomes increasingly paranoid as a result. Middle child Chip is a professor who lost his tenure-tract position when he indulged in an affair with a student. Finally, youngest child Denise is an accomplished chef who loses her job when she indulged in an affair with her boss and his wife. If the characters aren’t straying they’re thinking about it. The entire novel centers around the fact Enid wants her entire family home for Christmas. The needling, begging, whining and general malaise of the every character will strike a chord with all readers.

I wanted to read something by Franzen in honor of his August 17th birthday but found myself jumping the gun when I needed something interesting to read on yet another road trip.

Author Fact: Franzen created controversy when he voiced concern about The Corrections being selected for Oprah’s book club. His opinion was men wouldn’t read it if Oprah’s book club label was on the cover. As a result Oprah rescinded the selection.

Book Trivia: A movie version of The Corrections has been in the works for a long time but nothing is “in the can” so to speak.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters – first, in the chapter “Families in Trouble: (p 82) and then in the chapter called “Postmodern Condition” (p 190).

House of Mirth

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Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Signet Classic, 1964.

House of Mirth is one of those classics you read to analyze society from several different angles: society and the woman’s role it in; society and the pitfalls of economic status (or lack there of); society and the role of etiquette. House of Mirth is the book you read in college, in grad school and then go on to write about in your dissertation.
In a nutshell, Lily Bart is an orphaned young woman desperate to keep up with the Joneses. She is in love with status and wealth. After her father’s ruin and subsequent death, Lily’s mother pins her hopes of future fortunes on her daughter’s good looks. Only she too passes before Lily can put her beauty to good use and be married off to some wealthy bachelor. Lily is then taken in by a wealthy relation who tests Lily’s morality in the face of greed and luxury. In a modern spin, Lily is a classic gold digger, looking to “land” a prosperous mate at whatever cost.

Best lines:
How Lily describes New York, “”Other cities put on their best clothes in the summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves”” (p 7). How I sometimes feel, “She wanted to get away from herself, and conversation was the only means of escape that she knew” (p 20).
The perfect example of Lily’s “sacrifice” for wealth, “She had been bored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce – the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice – but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honor of boring her for life” (p 29). Really?

Author Fact: Edith Wharton got married when she was in her early 20s in 1885 but wasn’t afraid to get a divorce 28 years later. Rock on, girl!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “New York, New York” (p 170). But, also from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1900s (p 175).

It’s Not About the Bike

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Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life.New York: Berkley Books, 2001.

I read this in one sitting, again as a passenger on a trip from Maine. I had the luck (?) of traffic on my side so instead of the usual 4.5 hours to get home it took us over six.

I will be 100% honest. I don’t know what to think about this book. When I first finished it I was expecting some sort of lesson to be learned, some sort of moral to the story. Instead I found the ending as well, an ending. The end. I’m not sure why it wasn’t more for me. I guess it’s because in comparison with Matthew Long’s recovery back to athletics Long’s process was more drawn out, more detailed. I felt that Long’s experience was more painful and not as easy to cope with emotionally. I think that was due, in part, to how little time Armstrong spent describing his road to recovery. In comparison to Long, Armstrong made it a much simpler process with much less emotion. To be fair, one man was hit by a bus and another was hit by cancer in three different areas of his body. Only two similarities really rise between the two men. Both men were ordained by doctors to die and both had an insane willpower to defy all odds and, ultimately, get back to the sports they loved so much.

Everyone knows Lance Armstrong’s story – man with cancer defies the odds and wins the Tour de France a shocking seven consecutive times. But, as the title of Armstrong’s story suggests it’s not about the bike. Instead it is about a different kind of competition. Fighting cancer. Ultimately, as near death moments will do, cancer changed him. It woke him up to the possibilities of a fuller, more meaningful life. He never would have become a philanthropist without the experience of personal pain. It’s Not about the Bike is that journey from hotshot cyclist to a powerhouse with a greater purpose.

Favorite lines: “If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it’s patience” (p 65). “During our lives we’re faced with so many different elements as well, we experience so many setbacks, and fight such hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope” (p 69). Finally, “We watched the World Series and tried to act like we were interested in the outcome – as much as anybody really cares about baseball before brain surgery” (p 110 – 111).

Author fact(s): Two of my favorite details about Armstrong as the person (and not the writer) is he is also a marathoner (three times) and allegedly agnostic.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Best for Teens” (p 23)

Giovanni’s Room

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Baldwin, James. “Giovanni’s Room.” Early Novels and Stories. New York: Library of America, 1998. 221 – 360.

I want to say Giovanni’s Room is ground breaking but that’s only because it puts homosexuality front and center at a time when one’s sexual orientation wasn’t so openly discussed (1956). The beauty of the story is that it could take place today or tomorrow in any city or town on the planet. Admitting homosexuality isn’t any easier today than it was over a half century ago. Giovanni’s Room has been called autobiographical because it mirrors Baldwin’s personal life: an American expatriate living in France openly engaged to a woman while secretly attracted to men. David is constantly questioning his manhood because he seeks the company of men. His engagement to Hella is nothing more than a cover for his true desires. When his Italian bartender/lover is accused of murder David’s world falls apart. More than the plot, Baldwin’s writing much be savored. The pictures he paints are raw and honest.

Favorite line: “And we got on quite well, really, for the vision I gave my father of my life was exactly the vision in which I myself most desperately needed to believe” (p 235). I think that is the most telling line of the whole story.

Author Fact: Baldwin was a child Pentecostal preacher before the age of 17. He died of stomach cancer in his early 60s.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Says” (p 10).

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

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Field, Rachel. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. New York: Dell, 1957.

When I first learned of the premise for Hitty I cringed. It has gotten so hard for me to read outlandish stories. The suspension of belief is getting much harder to suspend these days. But, I am happy to say Hitty was different.

In a nutshell Hitty: Her First Hundred Years is about the first hundred years of a doll’s life. Made out of well-seasoned mountain-ash wood, Hitty is a sturdy, made to last doll. She is given to a small girl named Phoebe Preble sometime in the early 1800s. The Preble family makes their home outside of Portland, Maine and Phoebe’s father is a whaling captain. When we first meet Hitty, she is a resident of an antique store and has set out to write the memoirs of the first hundred years of her life. And what a life the first hundred have been! During her time with the Preble family she was abandoned in a church, kidnapped by crows, taken out to sea where her ship first springs a leak and later catches on fire; she becomes lost at sea, found again only to be given away as a heathen idol, and finally, dropped somewhere in India – never to be seen by the Preble family again. Hitty (whose real name is Mehitabel) goes on to be owned by a succession of little girls, some kind, some not. There are great periods of time when she is stored in an attic trunk or wedged in couch cushions. One hundred years goes by very quickly for both Hitty and the reader. (I was able to read the whole book in less than three hours.)
My only complaint – Hitty admitted to not knowing what a train was yet in India she recognized a cobra on sight.

Favorite line, “Which only goes to show how little any of us can tell about our own futures” (p112). I like this line because it’s in reference to not knowing when Hitty will return to Maine. I can relate.
The other element I liked about this book is the timelessness of it. Someone “threatens” to wear a nose ring when she is older. I can picture the same “threat” being made today. Another example: later Hitty attends a concert of a famous singer. The throngs of people crowding around the celebrity is very much like the crush of crowds at any concert today.

Author Fact(s): Field was originally from Stockbridge, MA and moved to Maine when she was 15 years old. She died when she was only 48.

Book Trivia: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years won two awards, the Newbery Award when it was first published in 1929 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award many years later.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the introduction (p x) – mentioned as a book Nancy Pearl read as a child.

Bonfire of the Vanities

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Wolfe, Tom. The bonfire of the Vanities.New York: Bantam Books, 1988

I will admit I never saw the movie of the same name. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because as a 19 year old I didn’t have time to go to the movies. I was working four different part-time jobs on a little island that has never boasted of a theater.

This is, by far, the most wicked of social satires that I have read so far. Wolfe’s world in The Bonfire of the Vanities is a delicious clash of wealth and poverty, prejudices and avarice, sex and scandal. It seems like the perfect movie for the self indulgent 1980s. There is not a single likable character in the entire story. Everyone is on their way to being corrupted by greed. Greed for money, greed for power, greed for what they don’t have. In their worlds the grass is always greener on the other side of Central park, the other side of the marriage.
Bonfire of the Vanities takes a single incident and illustrates the domino effect one wrong turn and one bad mistake can have. Sherman McCoy is an unhappy Wall Street bonds man who is having an affair with the wife of an aging billionaire. He isn’t supposed to be with her, she isn’t supposed to be with him – a typical scenario for the story. So, when they take a wrong turn and end up lost in a bad section of the the Bronx their car strikes a black teenage boy, possibly killing him. They argue their way out of going to the police, convincing themselves it didn’t happen the way each of them think. Deciding not to tell is their downfall.
When the political Reverend Bacon hears of this “accident” from the mother of the victim the racial significance of the event is not lost on him. Witnesses claim the driver was white so he pushes alcoholic journalist, Peter Fallow, to pursue the story. Peter’s piece about a black youth who was the victim of a hit and run sends the media into a frenzy. Soon Bronx District Attorney Abe Weiss, up for re-election, is out for blood. He knows this is the perfect platform for garnering votes: hang the hit and run driver whatever it takes. Larry Kramer, assistant D.A., does exactly that with barely any evidence: an undamaged car, an eyewitness, and Sherman McCoy’s reluctance to cooperate.

Author Fact: probably the coolest thing (more relevant to me) was that Tom Wolfe used to be a reporter for the Springfield Union paper.

Book Trivia: Bonfire of the Vanities was made into a movie in 1990 and starred Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith. Interestingly enough, it was a box office flop while the written word was a smashing success.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade (1980s)” (p 179).