Helping Himself, or Grant Thornton's Ambition
The year is 1870. Grant Thornton is fifteen years old, fatherless, and watching his mother struggle against poverty that threatens to swallow them whole. His minister father left behind debts that haunt them and a meager sum owed to the family by a greedy man who refuses to pay. With his education at Yale suddenly out of reach, young Grant does what the American dream demands: he goes to work. Not on his father's farm, but in the cutthroat world of Wall Street, as a broker's clerk with nothing but his wits, his integrity, and an unshakeable determination to rise. Each obstacle tests him. Each setback sharpens him. He battles an indifferent world, a remorseless creditor, and the crushing weight of expectation. But Grant possesses something the system cannot quantify: moral steel and the refusal to surrender. This is Horatio Alger's America, where virtue finds its reward and pluck beats circumstance.
X-Ray
Read by
Group Narration
2 readers
Richard Kilmer (1942-2022), Sharon Kilmer
