Shrines of Gaiety

“Every morning, every evening, Ain’t we got fun? Not much money, oh, but honey! Ain’t we got fun?”

The book’s epigraph is from a 1921 song popularly sung by Peggy Lee. It contextualizes the book historically while also speaking to the theme of class with (“not much money”). The epigraph bolsters the sense of irony in the title; together they suggest an unequal distribution of “gaiety” across society.

“Crime paid, fighting it didn’t. Frobisher felt his law-abiding bile rising while he had to quash a pang of envy for the Bentleys. He was in the process of purchasing his own modest motor, an unshowy Austin Seven, the Everyman of cars.”

This quote delineates Frobisher from the Cokers. Frobisher is the “Everyman” good guy, while Nellie and her family are the rich, Bentley-driving criminals. The phrase “Everyman of cars” parodies the advertising language used to peddle an ever-expanding range of consumer goods in the period.

“Maud was an account demanding to be settled. There was a reckoning coming for Nellie. Could she outrun it?”

Nellie got her start as a club-owner thanks to an act of theft. Although she doesn’t seem guilty about the theft, she’s plagued by guilt regarding the death of Maud, a girl who died in one of Nellie’s clubs. Maud’s ghost creates a sense of foreboding and gives the book an ominous tone. The image of Maud as “an account demanding to be settled” establishes the sense of Maud as Nellie’s superego.