Money
“Leighton Pugh masterfully delivers Emile Zola’s heady mix of urbane prose, playful dialogue, and meticulous descriptions of stock market trading and manipulation in this one-of-a-kind cautionary tale…Pugh is especially adept at capturing a sense of foreboding as the speculator’s checkered past of bankruptcy, political intrigue, and avarice threatens to bring France’s financial system to its knees…[and] describes a world of unsustainable growth, social stratification, and sexual abuse that sounds altogether too modern.”
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Zola’s Money (published in 1891) shows the corrupting effect of untrammeled stock-market speculation.
While some seek redemption through philanthropic and evangelical ventures, others—such as the main protagonist, Saccard—embrace their own avarice. Speculators illegally push up share prices so that ordinary citizens are feverishly swept up in an epidemic of small-scale investment.
After unsustainable growth, there follows the inevitable crash, unleashing widespread misery and playing out against a backdrop of looming European conflict, colonialism, economic instability, and political revolution. As Saccard tries to keep ahead of the financial authorities, he finds himself increasingly haunted by a serious crime from his past.
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