Sister Carrie
Theodore Dreiser’s first novel, published in 1900 and effectively suppressed by its own publisher. Caroline Meeber leaves rural Wisconsin for Chicago, is kept first by a travelling salesman and then by a married saloon manager who steals from his employer and takes her to New York, and rises to success on the stage while he sinks into destitution. Dreiser refuses to punish her, which is what scandalised his contemporaries and made the book a founding work of American naturalism.
Recommended by 1 Person
Simon Winchester
Some people thought this was a book about nuns, but it wasn't. There is no nun-like behaviour in the book at all. Quite the reverse! Carrie goes to Chicago and falls in with a swell [a dandy]. He takes her on as his mistress, and her life is tremendously up and down. She has an affair with a man who is married, and is then taken to New York and lives in Lower Manhattan with a man who ultimately treats her badly.
Interview · January 2012
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