num_pages: 326
description: 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.
language: English
title: The 42nd Parallel
titlecomplete: The 42nd Parallel (U.S.A., #1)
characters: Janey Williams, Ward, Mac Smith, Eleanor, Charley
genres: 20th Century, American, Historical Fiction, Historical, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classics, The United States Of America, Fiction
ratings_count: 7038
places: The United States of America
series: The U.S.A. Trilogy
publisher: Mariner Books