An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

I have no idea how I started reading An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't know when I downloaded the audiobook read by Grover Gardner that it was more than 38 hours long. But, hey, if you're trying to read big books, I guess 38 hours is what you get. 

This book is insane. It's as if the author had no idea what genre he wanted to write in, so he wrote in all of them.

Clyde Griffiths grows up poor in Kansas City as the son of religious fanatics. He takes a job as a bellboy at a fancy hotel and is introduced to girls, drinking, and gambling. After a terrible accident in which a young girl dies, Clyde runs away to Chicago. While working as a bellhop there, he meets his father's brother who is a wealthy owner of a factory in Lycurgus, New York. His uncle offers him a job and Clyde is off to Lycurgus.

Clyde is not supposed to date any young women at the factory, but he gets involved with a woman named Roberta anyway. He also starts seeing a wealthy socialite named Sondra. Roberta gets pregnant, Clyde plots her murder so he can live a foot loose and fancy free life with Sondra and when Roberta drowns, Clyde is arrested and tried for her murder. 

YOU GUYS. What is this? Is it a coming-of-age novel? A murder mystery?  A romance novel with a love triangle? A character study of man going insane? Is it a legal thriller? 

I don't know what it is because I just referred to it as the toxic masculinity book that criticizes capitalism. I didn't love this book, but I was riveted by what would happen in the next chapter. What else could Dreiser possibly find to write about. 

Apparently this book was based on true events. According to Wikipedia:

Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of Grace Brown at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Chester Gillette was put on trial, and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908. The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials.

I don't know. I don't think I'd recommend it, to be honest. 3/5 stars

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While I listened to the audiobook, the page numbers will be from this version on the Internet Archive. 

Lines of note:

And immediately after breakfast joining a long procession that day after day at this hour made for the mills across the river. For just outside her own door she invariably met with a company of factory girls and women, boys and men, of the same relative ages, to say nothing of many old and weary-looking women who looked more like wraiths than human beings, who had issued from the various streets and houses of this vicinity.  (page 258)

Pre-COVID cities were like this, right? Just long lines of people heading it to work. I liked the imagery. 

But if she questioned him in regard to these things now, would he not get angry and lie to her still more? For after all she could not help thinking that apart from his love for her she had no real claim on him. But she could not possibly imagine that he could change so quickly. (page 389)

Oh, so much symbolism in this passage! Also, isn't it interesting how quickly you can change from love to hate (or disinterest in this case). 

Things I looked up:

orchestrelle (multiple times on pages 292 and 293) -  A type of mechanical organ, specifically a player organ, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed to imitate the sound of an orchestra through the use of paper music rolls and a system of reeds and bellows

tergiversation (page 480) - the act of evading a clear or direct answer or position, often through ambiguity or deception

Hat mentions (why hats?): I counted 137 hats in this book! Hats were a main plot point. That's 50 more hats than in Gone With the Wind. I'll only give you multiples. 

felt hat (page 15, 87, 201, 298, 597, 871)

hat and coat (page 220, 232, 266, 523, 538, 586, 588 x 2, 589)

small brown hat (page 265, 510)

the same little round brown hat (page 277)

coat and hat (page 281, 538 x 2)

To match this pleasing little costume, she planned to add a chic little gray silk hat — poke-shaped, with pink or scarlet cherries nestled up under the trim, together with a neat little blue serge traveling suit, which, with brown shoes and a brown hat, would make her as smart as any bride. (page 468)

straw hat (page 475, 498, 511, 512 x 2, 515, 519 x 2, 533, 538 x 2, 539, 544, 545, 550, 552, 575, 588, 589 x 2, 590, 614 x 4, 615 x 6, 618, 630 x 2, 666, 697, 705, 706, 754, 778)

two hats (page 630 x 2, 633, 635, 645, 651, 652, 656, 666, 695, 746)

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Have you ever read An American Tragedy? Watched the movie A Place in the Sun starring starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters that is based on it?