{"product_id":"scandals-and-abstraction-leigh-claire-la-berge-9780190845988","title":"Scandals and Abstraction: Financial Fiction of the Long 1980s","description":"The Long 1980s could be summed up handily in the annals of U.S. cultural history with the enduring markers of Ronald Reagan's presidency, Oliver Stone's film\u003cem\u003e Wall Street\u003c\/em\u003e, and Dire Straits's hit single \"Money for Nothing.\" Despite their vast differences, each serves to underscore the confidence, jingoism, and optimism that powered the U.S. economy throughout the decade. Mining a wide range of literature, film, and financial print journalism, \u003cem\u003eScandals and Abstraction\u003c\/em\u003e chronicles how American society's increasing concern with finance found expression in a large array of cultural materials that ultimately became synonymous with postmodernism. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe ever-present credit cards, monetary transactions, and ATMs in Don De Lillo's \u003cem\u003eWhite Noise \u003c\/em\u003eopen this study as they serve as touchstones for its protagonist's sense of white masculinity and ground the novel's narrative form. Tom Wolfe's \u003cem\u003eThe Bonfire of the Vanities\u003c\/em\u003e and Oliver Stone's \u003cem\u003eWall Street \u003c\/em\u003eanimate a subsequent chapter, as each is considered in light of the 1987 stock market crash and held up as a harbinger of a radical new realism that claimed a narrative monopoly on representing an emergent financial era. These works give way to the pornographic excess and violence of Bret Easton Ellis's epochal \u003cem\u003eAmerican Psycho\u003c\/em\u003e, which is read alongside the popular 1980s genre of the financial autobiography. With a series of trenchant readings, La Berge argues that Ellis's novel can be best understood when examined alongside Ivan Boesky's \u003cem\u003eMerger Mania\u003c\/em\u003e, Donald Trump's\u003cem\u003e The Art of the Deal\u003c\/em\u003e, and T. Boone Pickens's \u003cem\u003eBoone\u003c\/em\u003e. A look at Jane Smiley's \u003cem\u003eGood Faith\u003c\/em\u003e and its plot surrounding the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, concludes the study, and considers how financial reportage became a template for much of our current writing about of finance. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on a diverse archive of novels, films, autobiographies, and journalism, \u003cem\u003eScandals and Abstraction\u003c\/em\u003e provides a timely study of the economy's influence on fiction, and outlines a feedback loop whereby postmodernism became more canonical, realism became more postmodern, and finance became a distinct cultural object.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Leigh Claire La Berge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0190845988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780190845988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/07\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 242\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.40lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.60d","brand":"Leigh Claire La Berge","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44054752985343,"sku":"9780190845988","price":40.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_a8db8619-4785-4814-a4fb-ae603e8fc3d9.jpg?v=1685031795","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/scandals-and-abstraction-leigh-claire-la-berge-9780190845988","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}