Synopses & Reviews
In this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture. But she runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. The first popular bestseller to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life, Main Street established Lewis as a major American novelist.
Synopsis
In 1930 Sinclair Lewis became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, and the 1920 publication of Main Street brought him his first serious critical recognition. Born and raised in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis knew the American heartland as few other writers have. He both loved and despised small towns, and the tension between those feelings permeates this classic novel.
The setting is Gopher Prairie, a bastion of prosaic, small-minded, middle-class values. Its newest inhabitant is the beautiful young Carol Kennicott, who dreams of transforming her adopted hometown into an oasis of beauty, refinement, and culture. But Carol is no match for the town's provincialism, and her struggle to overcome the complacency, bigotry, and hypocrisy of Gopher Prairie becomes the author's devastating and satiric take on all small towns.
Synopsis
Classic satire of small-town America. A young newlywed encounters bigotry, hypocrisy, and complacency when she tries to transform Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, into a place of beauty and culture.