An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

This is one of the most boring books I've ever read. It's the only book it's ever taken me literally years to read.

My mom picked it up for me at the supermarket (and no matter how much I ponder the idea of this book on the rack at the A&P, I can't figure it out) the summer before I went to college. It's a brick of a book in extra tiny, elderly-reader-taunting typeface. I started to slog through it, went away to college for a few months, came back for vacation, found it sitting on my bedside table, jeering at me, read some more, and kept this up until I finished it. Seriously, it's dull and takes forever to read.

And yet. I have a terrible memory for plot and couldn't possibly put most books down for more than a few days before I'd have to start over at the beginning to know what's going on. But I was easily able to pick this one up months later. Dreiser is boring for the same reason that he's memorable: he describes things in such sharp, intricate detail that he imprints them on your memory for forever.

I think this is one of the handful of Great American Novels because it's so authentically perceptive about and descriptive of the character of post-Civil War Americans. The hero of the story wants money and respect, and he knows he'll get respect by getting money. He wants to be a big shot. He ends up in the middle of a triangle -- devoted, simple, dull shop girl he impregnates versus glamorous, wealthy boss's daughter he pursues. He accidentally (except in the sense that he planned it) drowns his unsuspecting pregnant girlfriend in order to rid himself of his inconvenient past, but of course, you can't escape your past no matter how far down a river you put it.

Once you know this story, you see it everywhere you look, from Ted Kennedy to O.J. to Iran Contra to Watergate. Just push your dirty little secrets out of the boat and no one will know, will they?

It's the flip side of the American Dream, the true story to the Horatio Alger mythology. It's about our lust for privilege. We in America believe the privileged deserve better than the rest of us, as is evident from our health care system to our first class cabins to our Hummers and our love of casinos. If only we can figure out how to step on each other to claw our way up to the ranks of the privileged; then we'll be happy!

The movie adaptation A Place in the Sun, starring the perfectly cast and excellent Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters (gee, guess which woman played which character), is damned near perfect itself.

But before you see the movie, set aside a few years to read the book. The news, your neighbors, and your own seething ambitions will make more sense when you do.