How does money -- or the lack of it -- affect our lives? What subtle social signals separate the elite from the middle-class? What happens when the rich meet the poor, when status comes with a price tag, when personal desires do battle with financial concerns? These moving stories from a diverse array of both classic and contemporary American writers offer a mosaic of answers, with characters who inhabit both mansions and slums, who are driven by the American dream or derailed by it. Collected for the first time in a single volume, these outstanding works of literature combine to create a bold statement on what it takes to survive -- in both body and spirit -- in a money-driven world.