Streets of Night

by John Dos Passos

First published in 1923, Streets of Night has long been out of print. This edition, based on the first American printing, includes the autograph changes Dos Passos made in the manuscripts and provides supplementary material, textual notes, the substantive variants between the American and British first editions, and Dos Passos's diary entries about the novel.

Genres: Fiction

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

John Dos Passos was a prominent American novelist, artist, and political thinker best known for his U.S.A. trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—a groundbreaking work of modernist fiction that employed experimental narrative techniques to depict the complexities of early 20th-century American life. Born in Chicago in 1896, he was educated at Harvard and served as an ambulance driver during World War I, experiences that deeply influenced his early literary themes. His first novel, One Man’s Initiation: 1917, and the antiwar Three Soldiers drew on his wartime observations and marked him as a major voice among the Lost Generation.
Dos Passos’s 1925 novel Manhattan Transfer brought him widespread recognition and introduced stylistic innovations that would define his later work. His U.S.A. trilogy fused fiction, biography, newsreel-style reportage, and autobiographical “Camera Eye” sections to explore the impact of capitalism, war, and political disillusionment on the American psyche. Once aligned with leftist politics, Dos Passos grew increasingly disillusioned with Communism, especially after the murder of his friend José Robles during the Spanish Civil War—a turning point that led to a break with Ernest Hemingway and a sharp turn toward conservatism.
Throughout his career, Dos Passos remained politically engaged, writing essays, journalism, and historical studies while also campaigning for right-leaning figures like Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon in the 1960s. He contributed to publications such as American Heritage, National Review, and The Freeman, and published over forty books including biographies and historical reflections. Despite political shifts, his commitment to liberty and skepticism of authoritarianism remained central themes.
Also a visual artist, Dos Passos created cover art and illustrations for many of his own books, exhibiting a style influenced by modernist European art. Though less acclaimed for his painting, he remained artistically active throughout his life. His multidisciplinary approach and innovations in narrative structure influenced numerous writers and filmmakers, from Jean-Paul Sartre to Norman Mailer and Adam Curtis.
Later recognized with the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for literature in 1967, Dos Passos’s legacy endures through his literary innovations and sharp commentary on American identity. He died in 1970, leaving behind a vast and diverse body of work that continues to shape the landscape of American fiction.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s an early work, some say immature. It is certainly inconsistent, with some passages reading like costume drama, some like coming of age and others apparently directionless. By the end we have a first World War veteran. At its core, however, there is a realism about these people, a realism that transcends imagination into observation.

There are three main characters, Fanshaw Macdougan, David Wendell, and Nancibel Taylor. Fanshaw, Wen and Nan, as they are usually referred to, do many of the things that young people in the process of maturing get up to. On the whole, they seem quite serious and most times rather restrained. There’s a small-town mentality in evidence here, even when they are in the city. Perhaps this is the author’s comment on the how this generation sees the world, or perhaps people in general at the time were not used to cities, unless they had been born and raised in them. All three, however, seem reluctant to confront bigger issues and even more reluctant to commit themselves.

Having said that, there is a suicide. Exactly what the motive for the act might have been is an open question, even, it seems, to those involved. And, at the end, having served in the medical corps during the First World War, one character in particular imagines going home and living a different kind of life. We are reminded by the author, via a character, that those people still alive, even having lived through the winning of a war on a different continent, will soon just be a little older.

The ghost of the suicide continues to haunt. But apart from young men getting up to the things that young me do, the novel depicts very little. The relationships seem not to be very deep, but the consequences are. It is, after all, an immature work. But what came later was of such lasting consequence, this book by the author of the USA trilogy is worth reading, because it offers pointers as to where his approach was grounded.

[Myra Breckinridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a man heralded as the bee’s knees of American novelists, this is disjointed journey too often distracted by the lure of a cup of tea.

[Thibault Jacquot-Paratte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this novel. Anyone with the Michael Clark edited edition - skip the introduction. it should come after the novel; not only is it highly academic, not necessarily relevant, it tells you the novel might not be good (which isn't the case) and also presents an interpretation of the novel, which - though not being a Dos Passos scholar - I wouldn't agree with.

I can understand you not enjoying this novel, if you are looking for a book with an intrigue, or central action, suspense, blabla. What this book offers is atmosphere, characters, inner life, ordinary life displayed. The descriptions were often breathtaking, the prose and dialogue, lively. tea with friends and casual streets; their daily selves. I put this book down with a desire to read more of this author's work.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two comments:
1) My God, they drink a lot of tea in this book.
2) I was willing to forgive almost everything in this book except the way Dos Passos describes the characters walks where they seem to walk up Mass. Ave from Huntington and within seconds are crossing the Commons. No mention of Commonwealth or Boyleston, just Mass Ave. and then Beacon Hill.