If Nick Carraway was repulsed by the foul dust that floated in the wake of Gatsby's dreams, he'd be really nauseated by Peter Maas' latest version of the orgiastic future [in Made in America,] to which our republic has been summoned by that twinkling green light. In 1974, the new world of this novel has become a burned-out wasteland: The South Bronx resembles a no-man's-land in South Vietnam; the Inwood section of Manhattan has acquired the siege mentality of Johannesburg. Whores crouch in 42nd Street doorways "like bears on a riverbank during a salmon run." Every ethnic group hates and fears every other.

Bleak. But all hope is not abandoned—America is still the land of opportunity, where the system says to look out for yourself. And Richie Flynn, at 33, still believes in the Fourth of July speeches….

Richie Flynn is not a character the reader roots for; neither...