The Big Money

Book excerpt: “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).