Manhattan Transfer is an American novel by John Dos Passos published in 1925. It focuses on the development of urban life in New York City from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age as told through a series of overlapping individual stories. It is considered to be one of Dos Passos' most important works. The book attacks the consumerism and social indifference of contemporary urban life, portraying a Manhattan that is merciless yet teeming with energy and restlessness. The book shows some of Dos Passos' experimental writing techniques and narrative collages that would become more pronounced in his U.S.A. trilogy and other later works. The technique in Manhattan Transfer was inspired in part by James Joyce's Ulysses and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (both 1922), and bears frequent comparison to the experiments with film collage by Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein. Sinclair Lewis described it as "a novel of the very first importance ... The dawn of a whole new school of writing." D. H. Lawrence called it "the best modern book about New York" he had ever read, describing it as "a very complete film ... of the vast loose gang of strivers and winners and losers which seems to be the very pep of New York." In a blurb for a European edition, Ernest Hemingway wrote that, alone among American writers, Dos Passos has "been able to show to Europeans the America they really find when they come here."

Plot

The novel tells the stories, primarily, of four people living in Manhattan from the 1890s to the late 1920s. The stories are presented in a fragmented, contrasting way, often juxtaposing them to bring out new meaning. The title of the book refers to a railway station, and the way that Manhattan itself was undergoing change. The primary characters and stories include: Some of the secondary characters in the novel include:

Analysis

William Brevda has analysed the theme and symbolism of signs, such as in advertising, in the novel. William Dow has examined the influence of the works of Blaise Cendrars on the novel. Gene Ruoff has looked at the theme of social mobility with respect to artists in the novel. Phillip Arrington has critiqued the ambiguity of the novel's ending. Josef Grmela has noted artistic similarities between Manhattan Transfer and the U.S.A. Trilogy. David Viera has noted similarities between Manhattan Transfer and Angústia by Graciliano Ramos. Gretchen Foster has examined the influence of cinema techniques on the form of the novel. Michael Spindler has analysed the influence of visual arts on the novel.

In popular culture

A copy of the book appears on the album cover of Have You Considered Punk Music? by the punk band Self Defense Family. The book inspired the name of the vocal group The Manhattan Transfer in 1969.