Matty the Mainer told me he was finally free of what he termed the albatross around his neck that was Dos Passos' USA trilogy. He started it when he went to Florida, and apparently was doing well, until he stalled out around page 900, smack dab in the middle of the third book, The Big Money.
"Well, now that you're done with it," I said. "You can read my buddy Trajan's take on The Big Money, called The Big Money, No Whammies, set in the 80s."
It wasn't the colossal success his other book, Aries Moon, was, which netted him the National Book Award. It was still a pretty sweet novel, though, the only caveat being that you have to read the 1100 plus page USA first to really get the full effect. Matty was finally at that point.
"What did you think?" I said.
"Yeah, it was a pretty cool concept. I loved the part about the Coreys. I mean, I can't give him too much credit, because he already had the basic idea written for him by Dos Passos, and not only that, he only had the one book to focus on, as opposed to three. I think the reason why The Big Money was the poorest of the trilogy was that he'd gotten in too deep, and couldn't really see the forest for the trees."
"So what're you saying, you didn't like Trajan's book?"
"It was cute."
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