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Review [published December 1998]
Richard Powers: Gain
David B. Livingstone
Nobody talks much about the quest for “great American
novel” anymore; the phrase, once a sneering European
attempt at an oxymoron, was long ago answered by
Faulkner, Hemingway, and Miller. To the surprise of
some, even America – first, the motley amalgam of immigrant
trappers and farmers; later, the citadel of capitalism
and the mecca of disposable pop culture – proved
capable of cultivating its own strong literary tradition.
With Gain, Richard Powers launches his own strong
bid for entry into the canon of America’s best novelists,
delivering a work both epic in scope and universal in
emotional resonance, a contemporary book drawing
upon timeless, and often uniquely American, themes.
Mining the same rich, long-neglected vein of sociallyaware
fiction once plumbed by Upton Sinclair, John
Dos Passos, and Sinclair Lewis, Powers creates a subtle,
quietly horrifying mirror reflecting the seldom-noticed,
tragic consequences to life in a modern consumer society.
Like a Sinclair or Dos Passos, Powers successfully
apprehends and elucidates both the expansive sweep
and intricate workings of corporate power; like Lewis,
he succeeds in translating these into human terms, and
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human stories. And like Faulkner or Steinbeck, he arms
his tale with an unrelenting, sometimes unforgiving,
emotional grip.
The first of Gain’s two interwoven plotlines concerns
the birth, growth, and ultimate decline of the Clare Corporation,
a soap and chemical manufacturing concern;
the second, the story of the Bodey family, residents of
the fictional Lacewood, Indiana – a quiet, comfortable
midwestern company town, home to Clare’s massive
agricultural operations. Aside from geographic
location, there would seem to be little commonality
between the Bodeys and their corporate neighbour, but
it soon emerges that the destinies of the Bodeys and
Clare are destined to meet and collide, and likely with
cataclysmic results.
Gain begins with the birth of Clare in the 1830s as
Jephthah Clare’s Sons transform their family’s struggling
shipping and trading business into a soap manufactory.
Samuel, Benjamin, and Resolve Clare, through
hard work, faith, and assimilation of the new country’s
ideas and ideals – the land is to be conquered, God is to
be worshipped, industry is the Lord’s Work and profit
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