Nineteen Nineteen

In his day John Dos Passos' name was spoken in the same critical voice as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Some of his reputation arose from this book, 1919. It is the follow-up work to The Forty-Second Parallel and traces several characters through the times that surround them. Charlie Anderson sets off for Paris as America enters the war and Dos Passos weaves his adventures and those of other fictional characters with current events and historical figures. With this method, Dos Passos is able to create a work of fiction and comment on the period, which witnessed America's transformation from an isolated country to an expansionist power.