Manhattan Transfer
Interwoven lives of journalists, actors, workers and immigrants reveal early twentieth-century New York, where ambition and money promise success but offer little protection from loneliness.
Manhattan Transfer presents a panoramic vision of New York from the late nineteenth century to the years following the First World War. John Dos Passos follows characters from different backgrounds, weaving their encounters, relationships, careers and defeats into a portrait of a city in relentless transformation.
Journalist Jimmy Herf and actress Ellen Thatcher occupy central positions, their choices revealing contrasting attitudes towards ambition and recognition. Around them move immigrants, businessmen, lawyers and labourers, drawn by the possibility of a fresh start. Money and status provide opportunities without necessarily bringing intimacy or fulfilment.
Montage, shifting scenes and overlapping voices reproduce the rhythms of streets, traffic and urban conversation. Rather than developing a single continuous plot, the novel assembles parallel lives connected by the city itself.
Exploring inequality, consumer aspiration and the pressure to compete, Dos Passos captures both the attraction and the emotional cost of metropolitan life. This modernist classic places the promise of the American dream against the disappointments experienced by those pursuing it.
One copy is available
