The thesis at the heart of this learned romp through American history and literature is that the nation’s great authors have never bought what its politicians were selling. On sale has been the “American Dream,” “the promise that…hard work and fair play will almost certainly lead to success” (6). In careful summaries, Jillson shows that America’s great novels doubt the Dream’s attainability for reasons of psychology, culture, gender norms, and racial bias. Although fully acknowledging the hurdles that these tales illustrate, Jillson prescribes a re-dedication to a version of the American Dream as a remedy.
Substantive chapters are organized chronologically, each describing the events of an era, the political thought of its leading politicians, and summaries of select novels of the time (or, in some cases, novels about the time). These chapters are bounded by the observations of social scientists at the beginning and the end of the book. An...