Frank Norris (Writing)

Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Norris Jr. (1870–1902) was an American journalist and novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901) and The Pit (1903). McTeague was filmed by Erich von Stroheim in 1924 under the title Greed and staged as an opera by composer William Bolcom and director Robert Altman in 1992. After the example of Émile Zola and the European naturalists, Norris in McTeague sought to describe with realistic detail the influence of heredity and environment on human life. In The Octopus and other novels he strove to return American fiction, which was then dominated by historical romance, to more serious themes. Despite their romanticizing tendencies, his novels present a vividly authentic and highly readable picture of life in California at the turn of the 20th century. Although some...Read More