Bellow's third novel begins with one of the great American sentences: 'I am an American, Chicago born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style.' Augie makes his way through the Depression, Mexico, the war, a succession of protectors and lovers, schemes and escapes. The prose is exuberant, Whitmanesque, packed with street speech and philosophical asides. It freed Bellow from the constricted style of his earlier work and announced a new kind of American novel, one that could contain everything. The book won the National Book Award. It deserved it.