Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction, 1947.
Sam Braden grew up poor. When he was a little boy, he desperately wanted a cool, new sled. He couldn't understand why the other kids got to have nice sleds and he couldn't until his sister explained that they were poor and didn't have the money to buy stuff like new sleds.
Sam's whole life was defined by a single incident. One day he was delivering a package to a rich client of his mother's. (His mother was a seamstress.) He took the package to the front door of the house and the rich old guy who lived there yelled at him and told to take it around to the back door. On his way there, Sam tripped and fell down, right in front of Eileen, the little girl he had a secret crush on. Poor Sam felt humiliated. He made up his mind that he wasn't going to be poor for the rest of his life.
When he became a young teen, he quit high school to go to work. His mother died and the loss of the income she brought in with her sewing was really hard on the family so Sam got a job as a clerk in a store. But he knew this is a dead end job that will never amount to anything. He studied telegraphy and got a job with the railroad. The money was a lot better but after awhile he found it boring and restrictive.
His next job was as a salesman for a paper company. This job lead him into a partnership with a man who made wallpaper. Sam did the sales and the man handled the factory. The business was going good, mostly thanks to Sam, who understood what the customers want. It got into trouble when the workers go out on strike. Sam's partner refused to negotiate with the strikers and he hired underage kids to work as scabs. One of the kids got killed in a accident in the factory and still the partner wouldn't negotiate. So Sam just chucked it and joined the military. (It's World War I.) With Sam gone, the business was too much for the partner and he had a stroke. Sam came back and started running the business the way he wanted and he prospered. Pretty soon he had factories all over the nation. He even married his crush from boyhood, Eileen. (The marriage didn't last long though.)
Sam wanted to buy his partner out but offered him only $50,000. This was a very low offer, but what could the partner do? He was left incapacitated by the stroke and unable to run the business himself. The partner died and his wife agreed to accept the $50,000.
Sam got married again and he and his wife had a son, Hathaway. Sam took the wallpaper company public. He made a fortune and unloaded all his stock shortly before the big stock market crash of 1929. He moved back to his home town where he opened a bank and built himself a big house on a huge estate, 2000 acres.
Sam is the very picture of the successful man. He doesn't ever have to be that little poor boy ever again. Or is he? Why is his son estranged from him? Why does Hathaway urge his mother to leave Sam? Why does Sam feel that he has no real friends? He is pretty sure most of the people in town hate him. Are they just jealous? Or is there something more going on?
This novel is told in kind of an odd style, with some chapters starting with a conclusion then filling in the rest of the story. Like Chapter III, which starts out, "Sam was fifteen when his mother died." Then it proceeds to tell about that summer before she died. The author uses this device several times: Chapter IV ends with Sam at fourteen and then Chapter V starts out, "It took Sam nearly twenty years to acquire his first million."
It's kind of a strange and disconcerting way to tell a story.
So I guess the moral of the story is that money isn't as important as family and friends and being a good, kind person. This is true. But money is very, very nice.
Review from Kirkus Reviews.
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