Eclipse is a first novel any writer could take pride in. It tells the story of John Abbott who is, when we meet him in 1926, the most successful businessman in the town of Shale City, Colorado. (pp. 79-80)

[On] the eve of the 1929 stock market crash … Abbott receives word that his wife, who has now left him, has died.

He faces the Depression alone. One by one, those who had admired him and sought his favor reject him as his enterprise declines. His bank fails. His department store goes into receivership, and he is kept on as an employee. Physically disabled by a stroke, Abbott has sustained even greater damage to his psyche. Disoriented, bewildered, he is partly to blame for the fire that sweeps the Emporium, the one in which he himself perishes.

Thus Eclipse is a kind of Babbitt-in-reverse. Where George Babbitt loses his identity...