First published 1949
Willy Loman returns home to Brooklyn after another failed sales trip, his mind wandering between past and present. At sixty-three, this traveling salesman can no longer make the long drives or close the deals that once sustained his family. His wife Linda worries as Willy talks to himself, reliving conversations with his dead brother Ben and remembering when his sons Biff and Happy were young and full of promise. Now Biff drifts from job to job while Happy chases women and empty success. Willy clings to the belief that being well-liked matters more than hard work, but his dreams of prosperity crumble around him. As reality closes in, Willy struggles to reconcile his inflated expectations with his modest achievements, forcing his family to confront the gap between American promises and American lives.
Genres: drama, american-fiction, 20th-century, american
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Brooklyn
Period: 1960s
112 pages · Paperback · Penguin Classics
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness