Big Money, U.S.A. Trilogy
“It is not simply that [Dos Passos] has a keen eye for people, but that he has a keen eye for so many different kinds of people.”—The New York Times
Marking the end of “one of the most ambitious projects that an American novelist has ever undertaken” (Time), The Big Money brings us back to America after the Great War, a nation on the upswing. Industrialism booms. The stock market surges. Lindbergh takes his solo flight. Henry Ford makes automobiles. From New York to Hollywood, love affairs to business deals, it is a country taking the turns too fast, speeding toward the crash of 1929.
Ultimately, whether the novels of John Dos Passos’s classic USA Trilogy are read together or separately, they paint a sweeping portrait of collective America—and showcase the brilliance and bravery of one of its most enduring and admired writers.
The Big Money, focusing on a passionate pilot whose compromises culminate in despair and an actress led astray by her ambitions, completes this “fable of America's materialistic success and moral decline” (
American Heritage).
John Dos Passos
John Roderigo Dos Passos (b.1896, d.1970) was a writer, painter, and political activist. He wrote over forty books, including plays, poetry, novels, biographies, histories, and memoirs. He crafted over four hundred drawings, watercolors, and other artworks.
Dos Passos considered himself foremost a writer of contemporary chronicles. He chose the moniker of “chronicler” because he was happiest working at the edge of fiction and nonfiction.
Both genres benefited from his mastery of observation—his “camera eye”—and his sense of historical context. Dos Passos sought to ground fiction in historic detail and working-class, realistic dialogue. He invented a multimedia format of newsreels, songs, biographies, and autobiography to convey the frenzy of 20th century America’s industrialism and urbanism. His most memorable fiction—Three Soldiers (1920), Manhattan Transfer (1925), U.S.A. (1938)—possesses the authority of history and the allure of myth. Likewise, he sought to vitalize nonfiction history and reportage with the colors, sounds, and smells documented on his journeys across the globe.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (www.hmhco.com)
