Twain and Dudley follow a couple of stories concerning land speculation. One is a family that own land in Tennessee that they believe will one day be a cash cow. Until then, they are broke. The other story follows speculators also trying to get rich off of land price escalation. The story twists and turns and I had a hard time keeping it all straight. Part of it involves a beautiful daughter of the first family hopelessly trying to persuade Congress to buy her families land at a highly inflated price or else it will be worthless. When this fails, they lose it altogether, unable to pay the $180 taxes to keep it.
It was an odd and overly exaggerated story only the very-well connected do ok while everyone else scrambles to get a piece of the pie. I suppose that's true to life in some ways, but it's definitely over-the-top. It doesn't feel true. I love Mark Twain, generally, but this book is a "miss" for me.
