An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy
by Theodore Dreiser
read: 2010
Time 100 Novels, Modern Library #16, Guardian 1000 Novels

Reading The Executioner's Song, it was hard not to think back to reading An American Tragedy.  Both books feature central characters who are shaped by society and their own personal flaws and end up committing crimes, are tried and sentenced to death, and show their greatest strength of character while sitting on death row.  An American Tragedy is fiction, though it is partially based on a real-life 1906 murder.  Dreiser pulls more punches than Mailer, but it's still a gripping story, and when Clyde Griffiths begins having evil thoughts it's pretty shocking.

I had never even heard of Theodore Dreiser until going off to college.  At the time he was considered one of the giants of the era, but he was just a midwestern dude writing novels, which isn't as sexy as imagining Fitzgerald and Hemingway gallivanting around Europe with all the other writers and artists.  His prose style is a bit dated, but he gets to the core of some complex feelings in An American Tragedy.