I didn’t get the article either. My take from 20 years ago was that the book is about a moderately successful but self-loathing bootlegger’s extremely elaborate

I didn’t get the article either. My take from 20 years ago was that the book is about a moderately successful but self-loathing bootlegger’s extremely elaborate suicide, spending himself to death, the tragedy being that nobody understood or cared; all anybody saw was the party.