Jerome Loving
Published: 2005-03
Total Pages: 529
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"Dreiser was a controversial figure in his time, not only because of his literary efforts, which included publication of the brutal and heartbreaking An American Tragedy in 1925, but also because of his personal life, which featured numerous sexual liaisons, included membership in the communist party, merited a 180-page FBI file, and ended in Hollywood. The Last Titan paints a full portrait of the mature Dreiser between the two world wars - through the roaring twenties, the stock market crash, and the Depression - and describes his contact with important figures, from Emma Goldman and H.L. Mencken to two presidents Roosevelt. Tracing Dreiser's literary roots to Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman, Loving adds a dimension to the writer's thought that has not been fully explored, and reshapes our understanding of his tremendous contribution to American literature in what will surely become the standard biography of one of America's best novelists."--BOOK JACKET.