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Intro
Sherman McCoy is a successful and wealthy White bond trader who works on Wall Street at the firm Pierce & Pierce. He lives in a multimillion-dollar Park Avenue apartment with his wife Judy and daughter Campbell. He has taken on considerable debt simply to live in this apartment. He’s also carrying on an affair with Maria, the wife of the older Arthur Ruskin, who is a wealthy businessman.
One night, Sherman picks up Maria from the airport after she returns from a trip to Italy. Sherman gets lost as he drives back to Maria’s apartment. He and Maria then end up in a predominantly Black area of the Bronx. Driven by their deep-seated racism, Sherman and Maria begin to panic and search frantically for a way to get back to Manhattan. Eventually, Sherman finds a turn-off that will lead him to a familiar area, but he comes across a tire in the middle of the road and stops to move it. Roland and Henry then approach Sherman and ask if he needs help. Sherman is convinced that Roland and Henry, who are Black, intend to rob him, so he rushes toward them and throws the tire at them. Maria then gets into the driver’s seat, and Sherman returns to the car. As Maria accelerates, the car fishtails and strikes Henry. Sherman and Maria then return to Maria’s apartment. Sherman suggests that they go to the police to report what happened to Henry, but Maria argues against it. Sherman reassures himself that he is not at great risk because Maria was driving the car when it hit Henry. Sherman then agrees with Maria that they shouldn’t go to the police.
Meanwhile, Henry goes to the hospital, where he’s treated for a broken wrist and released. The next day, he falls into a coma. Peter Fallow, a down-on-his-luck reporter with a drinking problem, catches wind of the story and decides to look into it. After interviewing Reverend Bacon, a civil rights activist, and Annie Lamb, Henry’s mother, Fallow writes an article about the hospital’s negligence in its initial treatment of Henry and about the police department and district attorney’s lack of action in trying to track down the people who committed the hit-and-run that put Henry in a coma. Reverend Bacon then stages protests related to the injustices surrounding the hit-and-run.
Sherman sees Fallow’s article in the paper and grows alarmed. He contacts his lawyer, Freddy, who refers him to a criminal defense attorney named Killian. Spurred on by the protests about the police’s lack of action regarding the hit-and-run, two detectives, Martin and Goldberg, pay a routine visit to Sherman’s house to investigate because Sherman’s car is one of many that matches the description Henry gave of the car that struck him. Sherman begins acting suspiciously while talking to Martin and Goldberg, and Martin and Goldberg suspect that he may be guilty of the hit-and-run.
Meanwhile, Kramer—an assistant district attorney who’s intent on making a name for himself and is in charge of prosecuting the hit-and-run—has said they can’t arrest a suspect unless they have a witness who can corroborate Henry’s account and who can identify the driver of the car. Not long after, Kramer receives word that Roland has been arrested for a drug offense and has identified himself as the person who was with Henry at the time of the hit-and-run. Roland also says he will identify the car’s driver in exchange for a plea deal on his drug offense. Sherman meets with Roland and Roland’s lawyer, and Roland describes his version of events concerning the hit-and-run. He then identifies Sherman in a picture as the driver of the car.
The district attorney’s office gets a warrant for Sherman’s arrest. Killian gets word that Sherman will be arrested and alerts Sherman. Sherman then tells his boss, Lopwitz, who places Sherman on indefinite leave. Sherman also tells Judy that he is going to be arrested and why.
The next day, Sherman goes with Killian to turn himself in, and he’s greeted by a crowd of photographers and reporters, including Fallow. Sherman is arrested and has a difficult time with other prisoners in a group holding cell. When he is released on bail, Sherman vows to himself that he’ll never return to jail.
Maria is the only person who can corroborate Sherman’s side of events, so Sherman’s lawyer, Killian, tries to find her. Through a private eye, Killian tracks Maria to Italy, but no one knows exactly where in Italy she is. Meanwhile, Fallow continues to publish articles about Sherman being arrested for the hit-and-run.
Fallow then hears that Maria may have been with Sherman during the hit-and-run. In an attempt to find out more information about Maria and her whereabouts, Fallow interviews her husband, Arthur. Fallow conducts the interview over a meal, and Arthur experiences an unexpected medical episode during the interview and dies. Fallow attends Arthur’s funeral in hopes that Maria will be there, thinking he might be able to determine whether Maria was in fact with Sherman during the hit-and-run. After the funeral, Fallow overhears Sherman talking to Maria about the hit-and-run, which confirms Fallow’s suspicions that Maria was with Sherman at the time. Fallow then writes an article declaring that Maria was with Sherman during the hit-and-run.
When Kramer gets word that Maria was with Sherman at the time of the crime, he offers Maria a deal. She can support Roland’s version of the story and testify against Sherman and get immunity, or she can support Sherman’s version of the story, in which case she’ll be prosecuted for a felony. In Roland’s version of the story, Roland and Henry were simply walking alongside the road when Sherman clipped Henry with his car. In Sherman’s version of events, Roland and Henry attempted to rob him and Maria drove the car as they hit Henry in their attempt to escape imminent danger. Without accepting or rejecting Kramer’s offer, Maria leaves and then goes to meet with Sherman to discuss what has happened.
Sherman wears a wire to his meeting with Maria, intending to record her confessing to driving the car during the hit-and-run. Instead, though, Maria discovers that Sherman is wearing a wire and throws Sherman out of her apartment. Sherman thinks that if he had just been honest with Maria, she might have continued to support him. Instead, though, after that meeting, Maria testifies in front of a grand jury and corroborates the district attorney’s version of events by saying that Sherman was driving the car and hit Henry while Henry was simply walking along the side of the road. The grand jury decides that Sherman’s case can be prosecuted.
Another hearing is then scheduled during which Kramer will ask that Sherman’s bail be increased. If Sherman can’t immediately meet bail, then he’ll be sent back to jail. In preparation for the hearing, Killian and the private detective who works for him, Quigley, discover that the landlord of the apartment that Maria illegally sublets has been recording conversations in the apartment (in hopes of finding evidence he could use to evict tenants). Quigley finds one recording in which Maria corroborates Sherman’s version of events. That recording then contradicts Maria’s grand jury testimony. However, on the recording, Maria doesn’t explicitly say that she was driving the car when it hit Henry.
At the next court hearing, Kramer asks that Sherman’s bail be increased. Killian then asks to speak to the judge, Judge Kovitsky, and tells him that they have evidence that Maria falsified her grand jury testimony. In the judge’s chambers, Killian plays the recordings of Maria with Kramer, Sherman, and Killian present. Kramer objects to admitting the recordings as evidence, but Sherman claims that he made both recordings himself (the one in which he wore a wire and the one the landlord made), which makes them admissible. After listening to the recordings, Kovitsky declares that the charges against Sherman will be dropped without prejudice (meaning that Sherman can be tried for the crime again with different witnesses and evidence) because Maria’s testimony, upon which the grand jury’s indictment hinged, appears to have been falsified. Spectators in the courtroom erupt in angry jeers and attempt to attack Sherman and Judge Kovitsky.
In the next year, Sherman is prosecuted for the hit-and-run, and the trial results in a hung jury. Kramer gets thrown off the case after he’s discovered trying to arrange a deal for his mistress, Shelly Thomas, to move into the apartment Maria once illegally sublet. Fallow’s articles about the hit-and-run earn him a Pulitzer Prize. Annie Lamb wins a $12 million civil suit against Sherman. Henry then dies, and the novel ends with Sherman, now alone and with no money, preparing to represent himself in a trial in which he’s charged with manslaughter for killing Henry.
