Although otherwise ignorant and ineffectual, Mc Teague has managed to eke out a meager career as an unlicensed dentist. His dreary existence rapidly improves upon meeting and marrying Trina, whose possession of a winning lottery ticket further brightens their lives. But Trina's lust for money and parsimonious habits arouse a latent brutishness in her husband, as the couple’s happiness gradually curdles into a quagmire of suspicion, jealousy, and corruption. Inspired by a real-life crime that the San Francisco tabloids eagerly exploited, Mc Teague created a literary sensation upon its initial 1899 publication. Frank Norris's riveting depiction of avarice and moral degeneration ranks among the earliest works in American literature to offer a compelling, realistic view of human nature at its most basic level. Critic Alfred Kazin praised the novel as "one of the great works of the modern American imagination, " and it was the inspiration for Erich von Stroheim's groundbreaking 1924 silent film, Greed.
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