Description

Five people seek success in America in the early 1900s. Each comes from a different social group. Work, wealth, culture, and industry change around them. Public events help shape their lives. So do the small troubles of each day.

John Dos Passos wrote this novel about people and society. It takes a broad look at life in America. We meet shop owners, bosses, typists, and people who make ads. There are film stars, sailors, waiters, and printers too. Some people in the book back communism. Through these varied lives, the author comments on a nation in change.

The book blends its stories with bits of news. It uses radio broadcasts and songs too. It also tells of key figures from that time. These parts add a record of the era to the fiction.

This is Paralela 42, the first book in Trilogia S.U.A. The next books are 1919 and Marile afaceri. Radu Lupan translated this edition from English.