As an academic project, the author extensively researched the day and era of the cataclysmic financial event, the Stock Market Crash of October 29, 1929: its roots and causes he labeled The Gathering Storm; the day itself, The Deluge; and its Aftermath. Concurrent with the history unfolding is the capture of the flavor of the early third of the Twentieth Century, especially of New York City where the event transpired, and the lives and loves of a host of characters assembled by Hanrahan to show that the financial tragedy had its share of victims, participants and affected onlookers