Budd Schulberg's 1941 novel — about Sammy Glick's ruthless rise in Hollywood — the definitive portrait of naked American ambition — still the canonical fictional account of sociopathic success.
Creates the canonical American ambition portrait — What Makes Sammy Run? is the most precise fictional account of sociopathic ambition and the question the title poses ('What makes Sammy run?') remains the defining question about American success culture; it answered its own question (deprivation plus intelligence plus ruthlessness) 80 years before the literature of toxic success caught up.
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