...I was looking for a vision of America, for a statement about the American condition. I was after a book that would be as ambitious as possible. I wanted to be an American Gogol if I could, I wanted to write Dead Souls. All of the characters represent ideas about America, about an America in a period of extraordinary, vivid transition.

[Q. …we’ve exported what’s worst in our culture, while what’s best doesn’t export. What is best? What have we got at home that keeps us going?]

STONE

Idealism. A tradition of rectitude that genuinely does exist in American society and that sometimes has been translated into government.