The world of Capricorn is peopled by eccentrics and nymphomaniacs, to say nothing of the incorrigibly eccentric Miller himself. There is also a memorable portrait of his father, a delicate account of childhood, and savage, humane comedy in the bedlam of an employment office. The rest; fornication and anarchism, sometimes very funny, always rich, exultant and honest.
A riotous and explosive mixture of joys and frustrations, 'Tropic of Capricorn' chronicles Miller's early life in New York, from his repressive Brooklyn childhood spent amongst a galaxy of screwballs to frantic, hilarious years of dead-end jobs and innumerable erotic adventures. Irreverent and ironic, this is both a comic portrait of the irrepressible Miller himself and a scathing attack on respectable America, the very foundations of which he hoped to shatter.
Published in the 1930s in Paris along with its sister-volume 'Tropic of Cancer', Miller's books were hailed as a monumentous event in the history of modern writing. They were subsequently banned in the UK and the USA for nearly 30 years.
