The Favor Bank
The Favor Bank was coined by American writer Tom Wolfe in his book The Bonfire of the Vanities, in the book the Favor Bank is the trading of favors in the business and professional world. A record is kept of the favors given and received just like borrowing and repaying money in a traditional bank.The title of Chapter 17 in The Bonfire of the Vanities is "The Favor Bank", a summary of the chapter can be found at GradeSaver.com. The following Favor Bank references are from the GradeSaver.com Analysis section of "The Favor Bank" chapter.
Killian's exposition of The Favor Bank, like the earlier explanations of the backlogged Bronx justice system and the search for the Great White Defendant, illustrates the extent to which the legal world opporates according to arbitrary (hardly "just") patterns of favoritism. It's very obvious by now that the justice system obeys power, not any abstract ideal of fairness before the law, but Wolfe hammers the point home in his colorful and broad way.
In Sherman's case, The Great White Defendant priority will trump The Favor Bank, not because The Favor Bank isn't an important part of New York law, but because the political timbre of the hour insists upon prosecuting a white man. Wolfe wishes us to see Sherman as caught in a struggle of competing corruption, and to begin to feel a bit sorry for the guy, scum though he may be. Sherman is Wolfe's Lamb (pardon the pun): a not-so-innocent-but-innocent-enough sacrifice to a ravenous race-baiting media. Whether you wish to agree with Wolfe is, of course, up to you.
