The 42nd Parallel: Volume One of the U.S.A. Trilogy

With his U.S.A. trilogy, comprising THE 42nd PARALLEL, 1919, and THE BIG MONEY, John Dos Passos is said by many to have written the great American novel. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were cultivating what Edmund Wilson once called their "own little corners," John Dos Passos was taking on the world. Counted as one of the best novels of the twentieth century by the Modern Library and by some of the finest writers working today, U.S.A. is a grand, kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation, buzzing with history and life on every page. The trilogy opens with THE 42nd PARALLEL, where we find a young country at the dawn of the twentieth century. Slowly, in stories artfully spliced together, the lives and fortunes of five characters unfold. Mac, Janey, Eleanor, Ward, and Charley are caught on the storm track of this parallel and blown New Yorkward. As their lives cross and double back again, the likes of Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie make cameo appearances. "The single greatest novel any of us have written, yes, in this country in the last one hundred years." -- Norman Mailer This is the first novel of Dos Passos's trilogy, U.S.A., which covers the years between 1900 to 1914. "The individual episodes and the characterization, the setting and the commentaries, are in themselves less important than the effectiveness of the entire book and the trilogy. Dos Passos employs with skill the modernist techniques that were coming into fashion during the first decades of the century. There is no definite plot; the book flows in a stream of time and is designed to portray the United States rather than to narrate the lives of the various - almost innumerable - individuals who figure in it. The method of narration was a bold innovation. Dos Passos uses systematically the 'News-Reel,' describing the social background; 'Biographies,' profiles of prominent personalities; 'Novels,' which deal with the more ordinary characters of the time; 'the Camera Eye,' by means of which the author himself can supply an impressionistic personal commentary on what is happening. The result is sometimes confusing more often a powerful presentation of a vast panorama of human nature and of history." The first in John Dos Passos's acclaimed USA trilogy—a “linguistically adventurous national portrait for a precarious age—his, and ours” (The New Yorker). John Dos Passos's USA trilogy (comprising The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money), named one of the best books of the twentieth century by the Modern Library, is a grand, kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation, buzzing with history and life on every page. Told in stories and "newsreels" consisting of front-page headlines and article fragments from the Chicago Tribune, the lives and fortunes of five characters unfold. Mac, Janey, Eleanor, Ward, and Charley are caught on the storm track of this parallel and blown New Yorkward. As their lives cross and double back again, the likes of Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie make appearances. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were cultivating what Edmund Wilson once called their "own little corners," John Dos Passos was taking on the world. This is a classic portrait of a whole American generation, which fought the first of the century's wars to achieve the illusion of the 20's and experience the disillusion of the 30's General Miles with his gaudy uniform and spirited charger was the center for all eyes especially as his steed was extremely restless.