This Gilded Age

The story of THIS GILDED AGE follows a young man, discharged from the military and finished with college, on his journey from the Midwest to New York City. The catalyst for this move is a woman, Erica, a military veteran as well, who fled from an abusive marriage and ended up in a battered women's shelter in the Bronx. The theme of the novel is that the lust for getting rich by any means necessary pervades society and the moral compass of business is not dissimilar from that of drug dealing or prostitution. The story takes place in the five boroughs of New York and satirizes the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy. Wright also satirizes the American work ethic and the social pretensions of the newly rich. The book draws upon many themes of the original gilded age, including industrialization and corporations, as well as modern issues of urban squalor and human rights.As the stoic symbols of New York dispassionately follow Greg and Erica through the abyss, the contrast of "have" and "have not," of "passion" versus "plaything" becomes glaringly and unsettlingly apparent: sex trysts, piles of liquor bottles, slum lords, cult-like corporations, monies promised and stolen. Inspired by a long line of novels, from Henry Miller's `Tropic of Cancer' to Hubert Selby Junior's `Last Exit to Brooklyn,' THIS GILDED AGE casts a glaring light on the principles of America, today. THIS GILDED AGE is ultimately a poetic, twisted tale of one generation's vain desire to define itself in this empty space where once humanity's heart did beat.