The Big Money

The Big Money completes John Dos Passos’s three-volume “fable of America’s materialistic success and moral decline” ( American Heritage ) and marks the end of “one of the most ambitious projects that an American novelist has ever undertaken” ( Time ).

Here we come back to America after the war and find 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 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.

“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.” — New York Times