Clyde's family are street preachers, but he wants to break away. He gets a job at a hotel, but after a tragic accident, he leaves the city and ends up in Chicago. He meets his wealthy uncle and is put on a path where he's exposed to high society. He also has a young woman who he's gotten pregnant. Since she's not rich enough, Clyde would rather get rid of her somehow, because now he has prospects with a rich, young beauty. What follows is a murder.
It feels like everyone in this book only thinks about themselves. The beauty only starts talking to Clyde because she wants to poke at Clyde's cousin. The cousin puts Clyde in a cruddy job to keep him out of the way. Roberta, who is one of the lesser offenders, wants to hold on to Clyde no matter the consequences. Even giving up her morals and self-respect. Clyde is never happy with anything. He always feels like he's destined for something greater, and he deserves it. The lawyers are determined to win the case for political reasons. I despised the defense attorneys for making something up to try and get Clyde acquitted. I wasn't fond of the underhanded tactics of the prosecution, either. The whole 'plant two strands of hair' probably wasn't even necessary. I could go on, but I'm over the whole thing.
Everyone was in the wrong, but Clyde was the worst. By a long shot. I think the book wanted me to feel bad for him, but I felt nothing but contempt for the nitwit. He literally planned out her murder, but then he spent so much of the book telling himself he was innocent. I wish the trial was the end, but then his religious mother showed up and extended the book by asking God to spare her son. Many prayers and pleas to God take up a lot of the final pages.
I don't normally hate everything about a book, but this is one of those times. At the end, the only real tragedy was how much time I wasted reading it. I skimmed a great deal of the end, because I wanted to make sure some sort of justice happened, otherwise I would have had a riot over here.
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