New Deal Modernism: American Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State.(Review) (book review)

New Deal Modernism: American Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State, by Michael Szalay. Duke University Press, 343 pages, $18.95.

During the Great Depression, people got passionate about insurance. In Billy Wilder's film version of James M. Cain's 1936 novel Double Indemnity, for instance, an insurance sales call turns into a steamy and dangerous liaison. Barbara Stanwyck stands at the top of the stairs, dressed only in a towel. Below, Fred MacMurray is trying to convince her to buy auto insurance from the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Company. "The insurance ran ...

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