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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Some
Depression-era violence including gang activity and murder
Language
Some
Period language and some profanity
Sexual Content
Some
Sexual relationships in Depression-era settings; not graphically explicit
Substance Use
Some
Alcohol use; gangster milieu
Emotional Intensity
Some
Questions about identity, class, and the corruptibility of the American Dream
What this book is about
Joe of Paterson, a young man drifting through the Depression, discovers Loon Lake — the private Adirondack compound of industrialist F.W. Bennett. His intrusion into this world of wealth and its dangerous fringe begins a journey through labor politics, gangsters, poetry, and identity transformation. Doctorow's experimental novel fragments its narrative into multiple registers — verse, prose, statistical data — as it interrogates the myth of American reinvention.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Gang violence
Depression-era poverty and brutality
Experimental form may be challenging
Reader Verification
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