The Rich Are Different

Anyone who has read some of Howatch’s other novels will know that she writes long intricately convoluted, enthralling stories. And she offers lots of action, plenty of realistic dialogue, complicated well-drawn characters, and unpredictable plots. Built around the powerful Wall Street banking industry between 1922 and 1940, this 658-page saga involves three generations of several individual families.

Howatch writes in the first person but interestingly breaks the plot into six sections... in each of them a different character is telling the story. This allows the reader to view many of the characters from different perspectives. And just as in real life, all the characters are flawed and have weaknesses, vices, and misconceptions show more about life. Of course, some are worse than others and many don’t recognize their own deficiencies.

The opening paragraph, “I was in London when I first met Dinah Slade. She was broke and looking for a millionaire, while I was rich and looking for a mistress. From the start we were deeply compatible.” That’s Paul Van Zale speaking. In the prime of his banking career Paul is ruthless, feared, revered, already on his third wife (but who’s counting) and has recently abandoned his previous mistress. With neither Dinah nor Paul realizing what they’re getting into, the stage is set for an explosive clash of power and passion.

As the story moves forward, you get a first hand view of “last man standing” style corruption, self-serving manipulation, and the daily scandal occurring on Wall Street... the kind that eventually led to the stock market crash of 1929. Blended with the domestic scenes of marriages of convenience, adultery, subservient wives, and the rising tide of women’s liberation, you watch the approach of World War II. Are the rich different? That’s debatable. But whether inherited, achieved by hard work, or some unscrupulous method, their wealth certainly affords them the luxury of a decadent lifestyle.

This is a great beach read or long air flight read. "The Rich are Different" provides you with pure distraction from those everyday real-life problems... what I like to refer to as brain candy. You may despise many of the characters and be appalled at their behavior. But surely you will be entertained. And when you finish, you can read the sequel - "Sins of the Fathers" - which picks up in 1949 with some of the same characters. show less

Susan Howatch is one of my favorite historical fiction authors along with Sharon Kay Penman and M.M. Kaye. I've read Penmarric, Cashelmara, and yes, The Rich Are Different several times along with her other works. I'm always amazed at this book by how well the stories of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, and Octavian Augustus fit in with the post-WWI era of boom and depression. This time the reread had special resonance with the failures on Wall Street today.
None of the characters are especially heroic but they do stay true to their historical natures, despite the setting being investment banks for Rome and an English manor house for Eygpt. The book has different POVs, mainly Paul (Julius Caesar), Dinah (Cleopatra), Steve (Mark show more Antony), and Cornelius (Octavian), with one other being Sylvia (Calpurnia), Paul's wife. They each provide a unique perspective to the story and each other. There is also exhaustive, well-researched detail on world events from the Roaring Twenties to the beginning of WWII.
The Rich Are Different is historical fiction at its best, and a book well-worth rereading. show less

Dinah, an ambitious but impoverished young woman, propositions Paul, a rich American banker, in the hope of saving her family property. The book takes place in both the UK and USA, revolving around high finance and business. Fast-moving, tough characters, and well-woven plots with a fairly satisfying ending.

When I first read this in 2000 I concluded that it was not really my kind of book. In a sense that's still true - the banking and high finance life of the early 20th century isn't my scene.

But what a very well-written book it is; re-reading it, I was just as gripped as I was the first time, and also more appreciative of the characterisation, and the clever way the author has used the historical stories of Caesar and Mark Anthony as show more the basis for this amazing novel. show less

Howatch's novels at first seem like generic pulp, but within the first 50 pages the words pull you into a living story filled with so much more than generic pulp. The story is told from the viewpoint of six overlapping characters. She gives a glimpse of men and women driven by greed, pride, love, lust, and the need to be liked. If you know your history, pay close attention to the details because I believe she has compiled a fabulous 1920s version of Caesar and Cleopatra.

Dinah Slade was young enough to be Paul Van Zale's daughter. But she didn't care. She was a very ambitious and beautiful woman with her eye on Van Zale's tremendous fortune. However, she hadn't counted on falling in love. Paul found himself attracted to Dinah in a way he had long forgotten. Her vitality, her sensuality, consumed him. With her he could forget his past, his wife, his enemies, his empire....

This was a very satisfying read. If you are interested in historical fiction you need to add Susan Howatch to your to-be-read list. Others are much better at describing her unique way of telling a story from the individual viewpoints of each major character. This is my 4th book and I'm grateful there are more.

1978 - The Rich are Different always conjures for me two separate, but entwined memories. Our group's last summer at home together before our Junior Year & what will become a year of plans to keep us from ever reliving that summer again. This was the novel we selected to read that summer. It was a golden time for the eight of us—long days on the courts, links, or at the pool. The club's summer social events now seem so quaint & lame. Four boys & four girls who had grown up together and now lived in a world where summer never ends & good-byes are distant threats of an unknown time to come.