content: This novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 (for whatever reason) which the author refused to accept (maybe he agreed with some of the reviews). The author later won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930. The novel is about a fictional person growing up in a fictional state, going to a fictional university, etc. I may get jumped on by some people for saying so, but personally I found the story dull and tedious (a good cure for insomnia). It does not compare with other prize winning novels which I have read that were written during the same era (Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth," Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons," etc.). I suppose this is one of those novels that you must read if you are a literature student, but I would not recommend it to anyone else. If you have an interest in the author, I would suggest trying one of his other novels.