Scandals and Abstraction Scandals and Abstraction financial fiction of the long 1980s Leigh Claire La Berge 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data La Berge, Leigh Claire Scandals and abstraction : financial fiction of the long 1980s / Leigh Claire La Berge pages cm Includes index ISBN 978-0-19-937287-4 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-19-937288-1 (ebook) 1. American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Money in literature. 3. Finance in literature. 4. Capitalism and literature. 5. Financial crises in literature. I. Title PS374.M54L3 2014 813.009'3553—dc23 2014033968 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To my parents, Ann La Berge, Bernard La Berge, and Marshall Fishwick; but especially for you, Mom { contents } Acknowledgments ix Introduction3 P ersonal Banking and Depersonalization in Don DeLillo’s White Noise37 C apitalist Realism: The 1987 Stock Market Crash and the New Proprietary of Tom Wolfe and Oliver Stone73 “ The Men Who Make the Killings”: American Psycho and the Genre of the Financial Autobiography113 R ealism and Unreal Estate: The Savings and Loan Scandals and the Epistemologies of American Finance149 Coda191 Notes195 Index223 { acknowledgments } This book got its start as a dissertation in the American Studies Program at New York University Now that I myself have been through the program, and have researched and taught at other universities, I look back on my time at NYU and think: I can’t believe how lucky I was Andrew Ross is as generous and critical an advisor as one could hope for; Kristin Ross is not only a role model intellectually and pedagogically, but also a trusted friend; Mary Poovey is one of the most perspicacious readers I’ve encountered; Randy Martin continues to provide an example of how to think about value across disciplines and mediums Outside of my committee, the Marx Reading Group, which morphed into the Dissertation Writing Group, was a place to refine my ideas and learn how to help colleagues refine theirs: Thank you, Maggie Clinton, Michael Palm, John Pat Leary, Quinn Slobodian, Ipek Celic, and Diego Benegas At the University of Chicago I found an inspired and inspiring community in the Society of Fellows, including Nitzan Shoshan, Anita Chari, Mara Marin, Emily Steinlight, Reha Kakadal, Ben McKeon, and Dina Gusejnova Away from the Society, Lauren Berlant and the Affective Publics groups provided a space to work through methodological problems in genuinely new and creative ways Now at Saint Mary’s University, my colleagues in the English department provide intellectual support and a collegial home: Phanuel Antwi, Teresa Heffernan, Steph Morely, and Goran Stanivukovic, I’m thinking of you; outside of the English department Darryl Leroux and John Munro are models of political scholarship Other scholars such as Andrew Hoberek, Annie McClanahan, Alison Shonkwiler, Alissa Karl, Megan Obourn, Miranda Joseph, Richard Dienst, Aimee Bahng, Joshua Clover, Marcia Kay Klotz, Harry Harootunian, Richard Godden, Maria Farland, Andy Cornell, J D Connor, Sarah Brouillette, Doug Henwood, Colleen Lye, Mathias Nilges, Fiona Allon, and Max Haiven, have had large and small conversations with me Anna Kornbluh is trusted scholar, colleague and friend Debra Channick helped me with the introduction and the beginning; Doug Barrett helped me with formatting and finishing .. .Scandals and Abstraction Scandals and Abstraction financial fiction of the long 1980s Leigh Claire La Berge 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the. .. in the ambit of financial print culture and isolate the interplay of the formal and the vernacular in the representation of finance The result of this interaction is what I call a financial form,”... Again, the example of the brand as it takes a financial form is elucidating The realist texts I read, The Bonfire of the Vanities and Good Faith, for example, fictionalize brands a large extent and