Nothing succeeds like excess in fiction — excess, and the inevitable downfall it foreshadows. You realize that all the sexual escapades and expensive art that Joris-Karl Huysmans’s dandy protagonist in À rebours racks up won’t fill the massive void in his soul, that the sprawling and ornate Gilded Age homes around Fifth Avenue in Edith Wharton’s novels hide dark secrets within their walls, and the gin at Gatsby’s house parties will have to stop flowing sooner rather than later. The good times, […]