The Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel

by Tom Wolfe, Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Introduction)

Overview

Reissued for today’s reader with a cover by the renowned artist Seymour Chwast and an introduction by the critically acclaimed author Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The Bonfire of the Vanities is vintage Tom Wolfe at his best.

“No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton.” (The National Review)

“A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” (The New Republic)

Tom Wolfe’s panoramic novel of the go-go New York City of the 1980s has lost none of its furious luster. The portrait of power (those who have it and those who want it) and the book’s dissection of the racial and ethnic tensions simmering below the city’s gleaming veneer have only grown more pointed with time. Wolfe is unblinking, lavish, gleeful, and damning in this quintessential novel of the ’80s, reinforcing his reputation as an unmatched chronicler of the twisted, contradictory, and glamorous abodes of power and wealth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250352651
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Pages:	704
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tom Wolfe (1930–2018) was one of the founders of the New Journalism movement and the author of such classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, along with several novels including The Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, and I Am Charlotte Simmons. His numerous honors include the National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, the Washington Irving Medal, the National Humanities Medal, and the National Book Foundation Medal. He lived in New York City.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

March 2, 1931

Place of Birth:

Richmond, Virginia

Education:

B.A. (cum laude), Washington and Lee University, 1951; Ph.D. in American Studies, Yale University, 1957

Website:

http://www.tomwolfe.com

Editorial Reviews

A big, bitter, funny, craftily plotted book that grabs you by the lapels and won't let you go.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The Bonfire of the Vanities chronicles the collapse of a Wall Street bond trader, and examines a world in which fortunes are made and lost at the blink of a computer screen. . . . Wolfe's subject couldn't be more topical: New Yorkers' relentless pursuit and flaunting of wealth, and the fury it evokes in the have-nots.” —USA Today

“A superb human comedy and the first novel ever to get contemporary New York, in all its arrogance and shame and heterogeneity and insularity, exactly right.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” —The New Republic

“More than a tour de force.” —Time

From the Publisher

Wolfe's (www.tomwolfe.com) 1987 debut novel skewering the excesses and illuminating the racial tensions of 1980s New York has seen its share of highs (it was a No. 1 New York Times best seller both in hardcover and paperback) and lows (the 1990 film adaptation). On audio, it erupts instantly back to life, dumping listeners splat onto the gilded streets of golden-era Wall Street. Actor Joe Barrett, whose narration is generally very measured (e.g., Roberts Ridge), lets charmingly loose here. A superb complement to Random House Audio's downloadable edition of Wolfe's second novel, A Man in Full (1998), read with similar mirth and gusto by David Ogden Stiers. [The Picador pb also received a starred review, LJ 5/1/08.—Ed.]—Raya Kuzyk, Library Journal

Library Journal