The feeling is perfectly reproduced in Wolfe's novel, which opens such cans of worms as racial hostility, dress codes, political labelling and the cynical opportunism that governs every action.

The air of New York crackles with an energy that causes the adrenalin to pump, until one has the illusion that this is where the whole of life is taking place. Wolfe's modern morality tale displays the sardonic humour and sharp appreciation of the grotesque familiar to admirers of his non fiction. With his first attempt at fiction Wolfe has become the 'Dickens or Balzac of his age' the dandy journalist has become the towering genius The Times No other novel has achieved such a precise place in the imagination of the reading classes. If there is a set-book of the Eighties, it is Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. ‘The quintessential novel of The Eighties’ – The Guardian Read moreĪ noisy satire on Manhattan’s Wall Street cash-bloated plutocracy… Hugely readable. ‘The air of New York crackles with an energy that causes the adrenalin to pump… The feeling is perfectly reproduced in Wolfe's novel… Electric’ – Sunday Times Prosecutors, newspaper hacks, politicians and clergy close in on him, determined to bring him down.Įxuberant, scandalous and exceptionally discerning, The Bonfire of the Vanities was Tom Wolfe's first venture into fiction and cemented his reputation as the foremost chronicler of his age. His spectacular fall begins the moment he is involved in a hit-and-run accident in the Bronx. He has a fashionable wife, a Park Avenue apartment and a Southern mistress. Sherman McCoy is a WASP, bond trader and self-appointed 'Master of the Universe'. An exhilarating satire of Eighties excess that captures the effervescent spirit of New York, from one of the greatest writers of modern American prose

Wolfe bonfire of the vanities