The 42nd Parallel

With U.S.A., John Dos Passos is said to have written the great American novel. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were cultivating their "own little corners," said Edmund Wilson, Dos Passos was taking on the world. Counted among the best novels of the century by the Modern Library and by some of the finest writers working today, U.S.A. is being talked about, studied, and read again, not just by students of modernism but by readers of all ages both here and abroad. Here is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation, buzzing with history and life on every page. THE 42ND PARALLEL: In stories artfully spliced together and "with a sense of aliveness that quickens every page" (ATLANTIC BOOKSHELF), the destinies of five characters unfold just after the Spanish-American War. They are blown on this parallel toward New York, struggling to find their way in the world.