ABSTRACT
Sillen (1911–73) was a marxist literary critic who became literary editor of New Masses in 1937. In 1947 he founded and edited Mainstream, a literary quarterly which merged with New Masses in 1948. Sillen taught English literature at New York University, and wrote book reviews for The New York Herald Tribune, The Nation, The New Republic, and New Masses. Sillen's review is typical of those written from the Left, attacking Dos Passos's ‘misanthropic vision’ and comparing Dos Passos's latest novel unfavourably to Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath which was more ‘hopeful’.
