Amusing and enraging ... The best essays revel in the sheer ludicrousness of extreme wealth ... While adding ample historical context (the first 'trusts' originated as a tax dodge for Crusaders), this succeeds most of all as an exposé of the grotesque excesses of the elite.
There is something unconvincing about turning these pieces into a topical anthology ... This feeling deepens when you realize that some of the book’s sermonizing material about how Osnos’s hometown lost its Yankee propriety also appeared in his opprobrium-rich 2021 book Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury ...
The Haves and Have-Yachts is journalistic: descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s a prestige romp in the aloof mode of The New Yorker —a style that keeps passions at a minimum ... Memorable.
