'The Fall of Princes' by Robert Goolrick: EW review

Despite a synopsis that makes it sound like the literary cousin to The Wolf of Wall Street, the latest novel from the author of A Reliable Wife isn’t interested in revealing every bit of excess from the business era that laid the seeds for the financial ruin of the past decade. Goolrick uses an iconic figure of ’80s greed—the coked-out trader—and his inevitable downward spiral to draft a poetic and tonal eulogy for a more decadent and innocent time. And while it’s not always clear where Goolrick is going, each chapter is haunting and compulsively readable, written in a bold, brash voice that aims for over-the-top and miraculously sticks the landing. A–