If you were in New York in the 70s, then you know this is true, and how widespread it was. People jumped the turnstiles all around you. The subways were covered in grafitti – which gave them a strangely violent and anarchic look – God, remember that? The lunatics had taken over the asylum. Yeah, I’m 10 years old, douchebag, get the fuck away from me. I saw my first penis on one of those trips, because a homeless man walked right up to me and whipped it out. New York in the late 70s was not the mall-ed out Disneyfied New York that you see now, set up to make tourists feel comfortable and cozy. I have always known people who lived here, and as a kid would take trips down to visit my aunt. New York City has always been in my life. But at the time of its release, personal preference also became irrelevant. To be honest, Bonfire of the Vanities is not really my cup of tea, in terms of fiction. If everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – was talking about it, then I had to get in on the action. Whether or not I liked the book was irrelevant. It was one of those events that, at the time, i just felt I had to participate in. I can’t think of another book in recent years that has done such a thing. Bonfire of the Vanities hit the sweet (tender, angry, overly sensitive, paranoid) spot. It appeared to tell us what was happening as it was happening … Lots of books try to do that, and some books do do that but don’t hit the public in the sweet spot that turns it into an event.
A truth-telling bolt from the heavens, truths that lots of people didn’t want to hear. I remember when Bonfire of the Vanities came out – I remember reading it with my boyfriend, neck and neck – I remember everyone – EVERYONE – talking about it. The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe Which shelf will we go to next? Will it be memoir? Poetry? Biography? Literary analysis? Acting textbooks? Wouldn’t you like to know. April 9, 2007! What – am I nuts? Where the hell did the time go? And now I’ve gone through the alphabet and I am at the last book of this particular “genre”. I have been working on “this shelf” since Ap– when I started off with Hitchhiker’s Guide. Unbelievably, Bonfire of the Vanities is my last book on my adult fiction shelf.
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