Book Club: The 42nd Parallel, John Dos Passos (#23, 1930)

With selection #23 on Modern Library's Top 100, we turn to John Dos Passos' groundbreaking, epic trilogy about American life called USA. The entire thing runs about 1,100 pages, and while I'm going to make an effort to read it all, this Meetup will focus on the first novel, The 42nd Parallel.

This novel follows the lives of five ordinary Americans—a machinist, a saleswoman, a reporter, a labor organizer, and an ambitious businessman—whose paths rise, fall, and intersect against the backdrop of a rapidly changing country.

Dos Passos uses a groundbreaking collage style, mixing fiction with newspaper headlines, stream-of-consciousness “Camera Eye” passages, and short biographies of real historical figures to capture the energy, contradictions, and upheavals of early 20th-century America.

The novel asks: What happens when a society moves faster than the people living in it? And how do personal ambitions collide with larger historical forces? In other words, timeless questions that might feel awfully relevant right now!

I love novels that help me understand how we got here. And The 42nd Parallel promises to do just that.

(After this book, I plan to keep moving up Modern Library's list. But if there's enough interest in continuing through the rest of the trilogy, let me know. I'll happily host those events too!)

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