Money is the True Third Rail of Literature
When I first read “Bonfire of the Vanities” in the late 1980’s, the book’s protagonist, the bond trading Master of the Universe Sherman McCoy, struck me as very wealthy, a huge Wall Street success. I recently dipped back in to “Bonfire of the Vanities” as I was curious to measure Sherman’s financial success, circa 1987, against our current 2017 standards of what it means to be rich––our age of the TV show “Billions”, the Kardashians and the Trumps, and multi-million dollar birthday parties.