Sherman McCoy is a Wall Street bond trader - a self proclaimed "Master of the Universe" who is so filled with conceit and superiority that he flagrantly carries on an affair with a young woman, Maria Ruskin, married to a septuagenarian of dubious income. The two liaise in a rent controlled apartment mere blocks from the home Sherman shares with his wife and child.
After picking Maria up from the airport one evening, Sherman distractedly drives past the exit for Manhattan and ends up deep in the Bronx where he promptly gets lost, freaks out about all the people of color around, and in attempting to make a hasty escape, is involved in a hit and run accident where a young man is injured.
Maria is more than happy to forget the incident ever happened, but it dogs Sherman. And rightfully so it turns out because a drunk newspaper has been is forced to write a story about the injured young man, stretching the facts to make the young man look like a high school valedictorian saint, and well a media circus and a district attorney up for reelection later....
Few of the characters in the book have redeeming qualities in the least and there is much to dislike about many of them and their motives, whether for filling their own pockets at the expense of the mob, or attempting to hold on to money power or influence - Wolf has a mastery of the minutiae which really tells you what you what you need to know about a character. Wolf's writing has a flow and a style all it's own which made this book a joy to read, even if it did get a little long in the tooth in sections.
It's too bad the movie is so universally panned, because I would have enjoyed watching it at this point.
4/5 Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment