John Dos Passos - The USA Trilogy (x-post amazon)

This trilogy is a definite must read for absolutely everybody. Seriously, if i could offer you one piece of advice it would be to start reading it for your kids around the time they learn to walk and then let it live next to them up into adulthood. Granted, that might be going just a bit too far, but i nearly mean it. The basic premise is America. Big, cruel, promising, energetic America. An America at the point of its ascendance to absolutely unrivaled power. And within this structure some lives will experience all that this great nation has to offer, from the ultimate lows to the ultimate highs. The books follow a varying set of characters, with a certain set as the main characters for the duration of one book, to be followed by other main characters in the other books. What is done really well is how these characters all live in each others shadows. Their lives overlap, but never excessively so. They exist as vague backgrounds in each others stories, or they might have some overlapping supporting characters who exhibit different aspects of their personalities and mannerisms in the different settings. This is very well done, and feels natural throughout. Other than that there is a slight aspect of experimentalism to these novels, as they are interspersed with (relevant and vague) stream of consciousness sequences and the occasional "newsreel" to provide readers with an understanding of the media and social environments of the time. It is so well done, and the experiences of the characters are so many-faceted and tumultuous as to make me sit at the edge of my seat whilst reading my way through these, by all accounts quite normal, lives.