New Partisan is proud to present Lincoln MacVeagh’s now complete serial novel, Old Money, a dark satire in the manner of Evelyn Waugh and Dawn Powell:

“Look Dante, the question I’m getting at is this: Do you love commercial real estate? I don’t think you do.”

“Does anyone love commercial real estate?” asked Dante.

“I should hope so.”

“Do you love it?”

Mr. Bullard answered carefully. “I like it a lot.”

“Then you don’t love it?”

“No, but I care about it. I care deeply about it.”

Mr. Bullard folded his arms across his chest as if daring Dante to disbelieve him. Dante was genuinely puzzled. He hadn’t anticipated this discussion and he stared at Mr. Bullard trying to imagine what it meant to care deeply about commercial real estate.

There was an embarrassing silence before Dante realized where the conversation was headed:

“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”

During the German bombing campaign of 1943 Waugh asked that his eldest son be sent to London, while at the same time ordering his library removed to the country for safekeeping. He joked about the decision in his diary as follows, “It would seem from this that I prefer my books to my son. I can argue that fireman rescue children and destroy books, but the truth is that a child is easily replaced while a book destroyed is utterly lost…”