The List

(page 3 of 10)

RISKY BUSINESS

The Pit (1903), by Frank Norris

"Here, of all her cities, throbbed the true life—the true power and spirit of America; gigantic, crude with the crudity of youth, disdaining rivalry; sane and healthy and vigorous; brutal in its ambition, arrogant in the new-found knowledge of its giant strength, prodigal of its wealth, infinite in its desires."

The story: A cautionary tale of greed and ruin starring the Chicago Board of Trade, set against a love story gone equally amuck

Why the book resonates: The second book in an unfinished trilogy, The Pit was an immediate hit. Doubleday ordered five printings within a week of the first; the novel even inspired a Parker Brothers card game. Readers were fascinated—and horrified—by the gambling that went on within the Board of Trade. While the book was intended to expose the ruthless social Darwinism driving market speculation, it also conveyed a more positive image: that of a postfire Chicago wholly resurrected and humming with industry. "The picture you get of Chicago is one of an economic dynamo," says Joseph R. McElrath, long-time editor of the journal Frank Norris Studies. "It's Chicago: muscular city." Unlike other muckraking literature to follow, the book didn't inspire sweeping change or governmental intervention—but then again, as McElrath points out, "half of The Pit is a love story."

The author (1870-1902): Born in Chicago, the son of a jeweler; moved to California as a teen. Completed seven novels before dying of complications from a ruptured appendix at age 32. Once dismissed Chicago as an insufficient setting for a novel, saying it was not a "story city." Later changed his mind.
—J. W.

 
 

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