Dreiser based the book on a notorious criminal case. On July 11, 1906, resort owners found an overturned boat and the body of 20-year-old Grace Brown at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Chester Gillette was put on trial and convicted of killing Brown, though he claimed that her death was a suicide. Gillette was executed by electric chair on March 30, 1908.[1]The murder trial drew international attention when Brown's love letters to Gillette were read in court. Dreiser saved newspaper clippings about the case for several years before writing his novel, during which he studied the case closely. He based Clyde Griffiths on Chester Gillette, deliberately giving him the same initials.
Solid opening 30 minutes (we're treating this like a mini-series). O's involvement with left-wing causes . . . rift with Einstein (O thinks of him as over-the-hill and Einstein knows it.) First splitting of atom. Lawrence Lab in Berkeley--Lawrence practical applied physics . . . not O's strength. Main actor is from Peaky Blinders.
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