Manhattan Transfer

A masterpiece of modernist fiction that creates a vividly impressionistic portrait of a teeming and multi-faceted New York City

In a series of overlapping stories, John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer takes us from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age in a narrative collage that brings the complexity of the urban environment to life. From Wall Street to the waterfront, from the Bowery to the Village, from the city's grand avenues to its gritty alleys, its wealthy power brokers and its struggling immigrants, this kaleidoscopic novel conveys the restless energy of life in Manhattan. The innovative novelistic techniques Dos Passos used, marked by flashbacks, stream of consciousness, and a cinematic perspective, would go on to inspire a new school of writing. Almost a century after it was written, Manhattan Transfer remains an indelible tribute to the contradictions of the American dream.
John Dos Passos (1896–1970) was born in Chicago and graduated from Harvard in 1916. His service as an ambulance driver in Europe at the end of World War I led him to write Three Soldiers in 1919. A prolific travel writer, biographer, playwright, and novelist, he is an American classic of the twentieth century. Dos Passos is the author of Manhattan Transfer, Three Soldiers, 1919, and many more. View titles by John Dos Passos

About

A masterpiece of modernist fiction that creates a vividly impressionistic portrait of a teeming and multi-faceted New York City

In a series of overlapping stories, John Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer takes us from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age in a narrative collage that brings the complexity of the urban environment to life. From Wall Street to the waterfront, from the Bowery to the Village, from the city's grand avenues to its gritty alleys, its wealthy power brokers and its struggling immigrants, this kaleidoscopic novel conveys the restless energy of life in Manhattan. The innovative novelistic techniques Dos Passos used, marked by flashbacks, stream of consciousness, and a cinematic perspective, would go on to inspire a new school of writing. Almost a century after it was written, Manhattan Transfer remains an indelible tribute to the contradictions of the American dream.

Author

John Dos Passos (1896–1970) was born in Chicago and graduated from Harvard in 1916. His service as an ambulance driver in Europe at the end of World War I led him to write Three Soldiers in 1919. A prolific travel writer, biographer, playwright, and novelist, he is an American classic of the twentieth century. Dos Passos is the author of Manhattan Transfer, Three Soldiers, 1919, and many more. View titles by John Dos Passos

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