Whether or not there really is an American bankruptcy Balzac (cf. this discussion),
still one contender who deserves a respectful mention is Theodore
Dreiser—in particular, the Dreiser who wrote the Trilogy of Desire, a
fictional chronicle that closely tracks the real-life career of Charles
Yerkes, financier and scoundrel. A possible
complaint about Dickens’ “commercial” writing is that he really doesn’t
understand the details all that well: the sentiments are clear enough
but the events leading up to the comedy are left pretty vague. A possible complaint about Dreiser is that he understands them to well. In the supposed fictionalization of Yerkes, he sometimes veers dangerously close to straight biography. One
has to care about this sort of thing (although the chances of finding
an audience are perhaps greater among readers of this website than in
the general population).    

The real Yerkes
made a fortune in Philadelphia in and after the Civil War, failed, went
to prison—and then set off to Chicago, where he made a second fortune,
and thence to London where he began anew. All this is convenient for a novelist who wants to turn his life into a three-parter.  Dreiser’s
hero, Frank A. Cowperwood, performs the same trajectory. For sheer
story-telling, the best of the three novels is probably the first, The Financier, available in print for purchase, but also free for download at Project Gutenberg (link). A
manuscript search of the Gutenberg text will make it clear that Dreiser
has plenty to say about bankruptcy, much of it in detail. “In
these days also, he [was] constantly to be met with in courts of law,
for he was constantly being reexamined in some petition in bankruptcy.” “His
worst anxiety was that if he were sent to the penitentiary, or adjudged
a bankrupt, or both, he would probably lose the privilege of a seat on
‘change…” “[H]e hit upon the idea that in order
to forfend against the event of his being put into prison or thrown
into bankruptcy, or both, he ought to form a subsidiary silent
partnership with some man who was or would be well liked on ‘change,
and whom he could use as a cat’s-paw and a dummy.” 

And so forth.  But
perhaps the most interesting thing about Dreiser’s account is the way
he shows Cowperwood using bankruptcy as a business planning technique:

The suspension of the banking house of Frank A. Cowperwood & Co. created a great stir on ‘change and in Philadelphia generally. It was so unexpected, and the amount involved was
comparatively so large. Actually he failed for one million two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars; and his assets, under the depressed
condition of stock values, barely totaled seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. There had been considerable work done on the matter
of his balance-sheet before it was finally given to the public; but
when it was, stocks dropped an additional three points generally, and
the papers the next day devoted notable headlines to it. Cowperwood had
no idea of failing permanently; he merely wished to suspend
temporarily, and later, if possible, to persuade his creditors to allow
him to resume. There were only two things which stood in the way of
this: the matter of the five hundred thousand dollars borrowed from the
city treasury at a ridiculously low rate of interest, which showed
plainer than words what had been going on, and the other, the matter of
the sixty-thousand-dollar check. His financial wit had told him there
were ways to assign his holdings in favor of his largest creditors,
which would tend to help him later to resume; and he had been swift to
act. Indeed, Harper Steger had drawn up documents which named Jay Cooke
& Co., Edward Clark & Co., Drexel & Co., and others as
preferred. He knew that even though dissatisfied holders of smaller
shares in his company brought suit and compelled readjustment or
bankruptcy later, the intention shown to prefer some of his most
influential aids was important. They would like it, and might help him
later when all this was over. Besides, suits in plenty are an excellent
way of tiding over a crisis of this kind until stocks and common sense
are restored, and he was for many suits. Harper Steger smiled once
rather grimly, even in the whirl of the financial chaos where smiles
were few, as they were figuring it out.   

"Frank,"
he said, "you’re a wonder. You’ll have a network of suits spread here
shortly, which no one can break through. They’ll all be suing each
other."

In fact, things don’t work out quite that way—there wouldn’t be enough novel if it did. But Dreiser does seem to have a feel for a certain kind of dealer in a certain kind of deal.