Manhattan Transfer

First published in 1925, "Manhattan Transfer" by American author John Dos Passos is an engrossing portrayal of urban life in New York City from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age. Critically acclaimed and widely considered to be his most important work, Dos Passos tells the story of the city as it grows and changes through the perspectives of many of its inhabitants. The city itself is a central character of the novel. It is exciting and glamorous, but also indifferent and often cruel to its citizens. The novel is told as a series of stories of interconnected groups, couples, and individuals as they navigate an urban landscape that is becoming more crowded and modern. The characters from many different walks of life are followed through both their ordinary daily life of marriage, children, and jobs and are also captured in the midst of their complicated dramas, tragedies, betrayals, successes, and defeats. Dos Passos was influenced by the detailed style and modern tone of James Joyce's "Ulysses" and T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" when writing "Manhattan Transfer" and he succeeds in capturing both a people and a place in the midst of a great transformation. This edition includes a biographical afterword.