What does it take?
Is it really true, as the French author Balzac is supposed to have taught, as Mario Puzo began The Godfather, and as Paul Anderson believes here that “Behind every great fortune there is a crime” either never found out or forgotten? If this real world teaching requires equal doses of qualification, then this novella contains a good antidote.
Among the conflicting personal dreams here, there is an ever deepening conflict between different visions of what makes one rich and about “…what it takes” to become rich. Underneath, it is these conflicts that might kill Thomas, or let him emerge from Devil’s Canyon both rich and happy.