The Great Days: A Novel

About John Dos Passos

John Roderigo Dos Passos (18961970) was a writer painter and political activist. He wrote over forty books including plays poetry novels biographies histories and memoirs. He crafted over four hundred drawings watercolors and other artworks.   Dos Passos considered himself foremost a writer of contemporary chronicles. He preferred the moniker of chronicler because he was happiest working at the edge of fiction and nonfiction.   Both genres benefited from his mastery of observationhis camera eyeand his sense of historical context. Dos Passos sought to ground fiction in historic detail and working-class realistic dialogue. He invented a multimedia format of songs newsreels biographies third-person fictional narrative and first-person semi-autobiographical narrative snapshots to convey the frenzy of Americas industrialism and urbanism in the twentieth century. His most memorable fictionThree Soldiers (1921) Manhattan Transfer (1925) and the U.S.A. trilogy (1938)possesses the authority of history and the allure of myth. Likewise he sought to vitalize nonfiction history and reportage with the colors sounds and smells documented on his journeys across the globe.