An American Tragedy Author: Theodore Dreiser
	Book Information Publisher: The New American Library (Signet Classic) Book Type: Paperback Members Wishing: 0 Rating: 2 ISBN-13: 234420 - ISBN-10: Publication Date: 9/1964 Pages: 831

On one level, AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, however, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and the dark side of the American Dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY stands as the supreme achievement of a writer who ranks, in the words of Irving Howe, "among the American giants, one of the very few American giants we hae had." As Mr. Howe goes on to declare: "Reading AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY again...I have found myself greatly moved and shaken by its repeated onslaughts of narrative, its profound immersion in human suffering, its dredging up of those shapeless desires which lie, as if in fever, just below the plane of consciousness....It is a masterpiece, nothing less."