The Adventures of Augie March

Clem Tambow, lead him to a thief named Joe Gorman, who proposes that Augie act as a lookout while the gang robs a leather goods shop.

Augie takes part in the robbery. Afterward, he immediately regrets his actions. He tells Gorman to not involve him in the future while worrying about how he will explain his cut of the profits. When Einhorn learns what Augie has done, he lectures his former protégé. He warns Augie to stay away from the pool hall if he continues to associate with criminals. Augie feels a natural opposition welling inside him, but he appreciates Einhorn’s concern. He knows that Einhorn has his own “multifarious swindles The Great Market Crash of 1929 has “wiped out” the Einhorn family fortune, and Einhorn becomes increasingly ruthless, ruling his remaining properties with an iron fist and becoming a slumlord. He is challenged in court by his tenants and loses. Now broke, he can no longer pay Augie. The pool hall is all he has left, so he begins to rebuild from this new, diminished base.

Simon is similarly hurt by the crash but stays afloat with good business instincts. He becomes more interested in politics and adult endeavors, learning to play pool in the pool hall but steering clear of “the hoodlums, torpedoes, and thieves” (112). Augie sells sodas but becomes tangentially involved in a robbery. His friends, Jimmy Klein and” (117), though none involve anyone like Gorman.

Einhorn offers Augie a new role for less money than before. He involves Augie in a property development scheme with Nosey Mutchnik, a local gangster. Einhorn deceives Mutchnik for more than $400. Later, he gives Augie a new wallet and $10. He also offers to take Augie to a show to celebrate his graduation from high school. Rather than a show, however, he takes Augie to a brothel. The host there is surprised by Einhorn’s “immovable legs,” but Einhorn hires sex workers nevertheless. The inexperienced Augie has sex with an older woman, who treats him “mercifully” (124). Afterward, Augie helps to carry Einhorn off the premises. Einhorn warns him not to make eye contact with the sex workers. Later, he tells Augie to borrow his car to attend his graduation party. 

After enrolling in the city college, Augie finds a job at a women’s shoe store. Since he and Simon both have “first rate” jobs, their family no longer qualifies for charity help, but they hire a woman named Molly Simms to help their mother. After a sexual encounter with Simon, however, she is sent away. They hire an old Polish woman named Sablonka instead.

Augie drops out of college to work at a sporting goods store in Evanston. His boss, Mr. Renling, tells his wife to lend Augie money so that he is “appropriately dressed.” Since the store sells horse riding equipment, Augie also receives riding lessons. Mrs. Renling takes an interest in Augie, inviting him to social events to try to raise him up in the world. She is an aristocratic woman from Luxembourg. Turning Augie into a “cultured man” becomes her project, and she is displeased when he spends time with a woman named Willa Steiner. When Mrs. Renling visits “mineral baths for her arthritis” (135), Augie travels with her to keep her company. She gossips with him over dinner about the other people they see at Benton Harbor, Michigan.

At dinner one day, Augie becomes enamored with a young woman named Esther Fenchel. She is often seen in and around Mrs. Renling’s social circle, so Augie tries to endear himself to Esther and her family. Mrs. Renling is bemused, warning him that he “[has not] got a chance” (140). He turns down an invitation from Esther’s sister, Thea, to play tennis, as he hopes to see Esther at the beach. His trip to the beach makes him late for a card game with Mrs. Renling. Eventually, he asks Esther to dance with him. When she turns him down, Augie faints “dead away.”

Mrs. Renling encourages Augie to give up his pursuit. Stepping outside to be alone, Augie sits on a swing, and Thea joins him. She knows that Esther rejected him, and as her thigh touches Augie’s ankle, she suggests that Augie is in a sexual relationship with the older Mrs. Renling. Augie is shocked. Thea then explains that she has noticed him following her sister lovingly, and she confesses that she has been doing the same to Augie. He begins to realize that she is “someone extraordinary.” She tells Augie that she loves him and asks him to love her instead of Esther, but Augie turns her down.

The next day, the Fenchel family leaves the hotel. Thea leaves a note for Augie, chiding him for turning her down but assuring him that she still loves him and will see him soon. Soon after, Simon visits and introduces Augie to his girlfriend. Augie is jealous that his brother is “powerfully in love” (148), even though he does not particularly care for Cissy, Simon’s girlfriend. Simon hints that he may marry Cissy soon.

Mr. and Mrs. Renling wonder whether they should adopt Augie, who will then “live with them, and inherit all their dough” (151). Mrs. Renling is the chief advocate of the idea, selling it to Augie as a way to help him seduce Thea Fenchel. She still mistakenly believes that Augie fell in love with Thea rather than Esther. When Augie is unconvinced, Mrs. Renling calls him a “fool” and grows impatient. Augie asks Einhorn for advice. He discovers that Einhorn is dealing with his own romantic issue: An employee with a disability named Mildred Stark has fallen in love with Einhorn. Einhorn’s wife, Tillie, seems to accept that her husband is having an affair with his secretary. The matter distracts Einhorn, so he cannot provide good advice.

Later, Augie runs into an old college friend named Clarence Ruber, who works for an inventor. The man has invented a new type of waterproof paint and needs an extra salesman to run the store while Ruber is out. Since Augie has “experience with rich customers, a ritzy clientele” (156), he is offered the job. Augie expects to turn the adoption offer down, and he does not believe he can continue with the Renlings once he does so. Though Mr. Renling accepts Augie’s resignation, Mrs. Renling is furious. Augie then visits Grandma Lausch, who is now approaching death.

Augie is “a flop” in his new job, meaning that Simon must cover more of the family expenses, much to his annoyance. Short on money, Augie listens to the thief, Joe Gorman, who offers to pay him to help smuggle immigrants over the Canadian border. Augie is desperate so he accepts, even though he knows the scale of the crime. Leaving his remaining stock of paint with Tillie Einhorn, he embarks on Gorman’s scheme. They drive north and stop for gas in New York. As Augie goes for food, he sees a state trooper inspecting Gorman’s car. Augie and Gorman run away, and the armed Gorman threatens Augie to keep his distance. He reveals that the car is stolen. They arrange to meet the following morning and catch separate buses north to Buffalo. Rather than meet Gorman, Augie heads west. Unfortunately, he is mistakenly caught up in a protest by an “organization of the unemployed” (164), and he goes with them to Buffalo. From his place among the crowd, Augie sees Gorman in the back of a police car.

After a night in a cheap hotel, he asks Simon to wire him money to return home. No response comes, so the disheveled Augie tries to hitchhike back to Chicago. Lacking success, he jumps aboard a train headed to Cleveland. He joins a train car with other train hoppers and travels with them until a cop kicks them off. Along the way, he meets a young man named Stoney, and they travel together. They spend the night with a strange group of men, one of whom tries to molest Augie during the night.

Riding trains and hitchhiking in trucks, Augie and Stoney travel further. They are joined by a man named Wolfy and apprehended by the police. To Augie’s relief, the police do not connect him with Gorman. After a night in the “crowded cell,” Wolfy is held for a previous crime while Augie and Stoney are released. Augie leaves Stoney asleep on a train as they reach Chicago. He travels the final leg of the journey in a car belonging to a film company salesman.

Augie discovers that Simon sold the family apartment in his absence. His mother is now living with the Kreindl family; she tells Augie that Grandma Lausch died, but she does not know why Simon sold the apartment. She offers him what little money she has, but Augie insists that she keep it. He goes to visit Einhorn, but on the way, he meets Colbin and Five Properties. He is invited to Five Properties’s wedding and told to bring a date. After, he meets Einhorn, who already knows about Gorman’s “brainlessness.” He cannot understand why Augie faced such a difficult journey home; he says that he gave Simon the money for train fare. Augie is angry with his brother, whom Einhorn says has lost a bet against a gangster, Nosey Mutchnik. Simon is no longer with Cissy, Einhorn says, as she is now engaged to Five Properties. Simon reacted violently to this and was briefly arrested. Einhorn recommends that Augie turn his brother’s misfortunes back on him, but Augie unexpectedly begins “bawling.” Einhorn allows him to stay the night.

The following day, Augie searches for a new home for his mother. He confronts Simon, and they find a place for her in “a Home for the blind” (185). To pay the fees, Augie must pawn his possessions. He accepts Einhorn’s offer of a job with an upmarket dog service. The boss routinely drugs the dogs, and Augie lies to the customers about why their dogs are so sleepy. Augie does not like the job.

He meets an old college friend named Manny Padilla, who reveals that he is in “a racket swiping books” to help him through college (189). He invites Augie to hang out with him and two African American girls he knows. That evening, Padilla admits that he has a family back in Mexico. He spends all his money and then shares a meal in his apartment with Augie. The next day, Augie “experiments” with theft. He steals books for people but becomes interested in their contents, leading to a slew of unfulfilled orders.

Simon wants to repay the money he took from Einhorn and Augie. He confesses to his brother that he felt suicidal while in jail. Now, he plans to turn his life around by marrying a rich woman named Charlotte Magnus, even though he has never met her. Simon offers to help Augie find a similarly wealthy bride since they have “both been running too much with the losers” (197), but he needs Augie’s help to impress Charlotte’s family.