Mcteague: A Story of San Francisco

McTeague is a massive, slow-witted dentist who practices in a cramped San Francisco office above a saloon. He lives a simple life of beer and oversized meals until he meets Trina Sieppe, a tiny German-American seamstress who captures his brutish attention. When Trina wins a lottery fortune of five thousand dollars, the novel's dark engine ignites: Marcus Schouler, McTeague's supposed friend, turns vicious with jealousy, and Trina's newfound wealth transforms her into a miserly, paranoid shut-in. What unfolds is a naturalist horror story about how money warps every relationship it touches, and how heredity and environment forge inevitable fates. Norris writes with savage precision about the underbelly of turn-of-the-century San Francisco, showing his characters as products of their biology and their squalid circumstances. The novel builds toward a conclusion of staggering brutality, driven by the same relentless momentum as Greek tragedy. This is American naturalism at its most unflinching: a novel that scandalized its era and still hits like a blow to the stomach.