Donald Pizer Książki

A New York Times Notable BookAn intimate biography of a great American writer.He rose from a childhood as the illegitimate son of a financial titan to become the man Sartre called "the greatest writer of our time." A progressive writer who turned his passions into the groundbreaking U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos later embraced conservative causes. At the height of his career he was considered a peer of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, yet he died in obscurity in 1970.Award-winning biographer Virginia Spencer Carr examines the contradictions of Dos Passos's life with an in-depth study of the man. Using the writer's letters and journals, and with assistance from the Dos Passos family, Carr reconstructs an epic life, one of literary acclaim and bitter obscurity, restless wandering and happy marriage, friendship with Edmund Wilson and feuds with Hemingway. First published to acclaim in 1984, Dos Passos remains the definitive personal portrait of the author.

Considered by many to be John Dos Passos's greatest work, Manhattan Transfer is an "expressionistic picture of New York" (New York Times) in the 1920s that reveals the lives of wealthy power brokers and struggling immigrants alike. From Fourteenth Street to the Bowery, Delmonico's to the underbelly of the city waterfront, Dos Passos chronicles the lives of characters struggling to become a part of modernity before they are destroyed by it. More than seventy-five years after its first publication, Manhattan Transfer still stands as "a novel of the very first importance" (Sinclair Lewis). It is a masterpiece of modern fiction and a lasting tribute to the dual-edged nature of the American dream.

This volume features three novels and a collection of essays by a notable American naturalist writer, who drew inspiration from the “new novel” style of Zola and Flaubert, adapting it to American contexts with a focus on action and emerging sciences like economics and psychology. Born in Chicago in 1870 and later moving to San Francisco, the author studied art in Paris and literature at Berkeley and Harvard. His career included journalism and foreign correspondence, with significant experiences such as being expelled from South Africa and reporting on the Spanish-American War. He published six novels between 1898 and 1902 before his untimely death in 1902. One novel, written in 1895 but published posthumously, explores the downfall of Vandover, a once-promising artist, through themes of debauchery and societal descent. Another, McTeague, presents a stark portrayal of a dentist and his wife, delving into issues of obsession and domestic violence, and served as the basis for the film Greed. The Octopus, part of an unfinished trilogy, depicts the struggles of California ranchers against a railroad monopoly, inspired by historical events. The accompanying essays, spanning 1896–1902, include reviews, literary commentary, and humorous parodies, discussing the state of American fiction and the artist's social responsibilities.