Sherman McCoy, the novel’s main character, is about to leave his luxurious Park Avenue apartment to take his dachshund for a walk.

Why did he turn tail and run? Now he has lost for certain. Safely out of the mob, the Mayor’s heart sinks. A big man with a gold earring gets in the Mayor’s face and screams insults, but is shoved aside by one of the bodyguards. The Mayor’s security convinces him to make a retreat. Some of the hecklers make it onstage, and one throws a mayonnaise jar. Now, with the TV cameras rolling, he realizes to his horror that the bad press will very likely cost him the next election.Īngrily, the Mayor thinks of all the smug white New Yorkers who will watch the melee on the news and enjoy the thrill of it. As the Mayor attempts to take control and share budget statistics with them, someone shouts, “Don’t percentage no annual budget with us, man! We want jobs!” Others yell out anti-Semitic epithets: “Yo, Goldberg! Yo, Hymie!” Shocked, the Mayor begins to suspect he has been set up, that the hecklers in the crowd are no ordinary citizens but shills placed there by Reverend Bacon, a vocal African-American activist who would like nothing better to see the Mayor out of office. The predominately African-Americancrowd is not friendly, and the white, Jewish mayor is heckled and booed as a “Chuck” or “Charlie”-a white bigot. The book opens in Harlem, where the unnamed mayor of New York is holding a town-hall meeting.

The bonfire of the vanities novel