Synopses & Reviews
Written at the height of his powers in the 1920s, the three novels in this volume continue the vigorous unmasking of American middle-class life begun by Sinclair Lewis in Main Street and Babbitt.
In Arrowsmith (1925) Lewis portrays the medical career of Martin Arrowsmith, a physician who finds his commitment to the ideals of his profession tested by the cynicism and opportunism he encounters in private practice, public health work, and scientific research. The novel reaches its climax as its hero faces his greatest challenges amid a deadly outbreak of plague on a Caribbean island.
Elmer Gantry (1927) aroused intense controversy with its brutal depiction of a hypocritical preacher in relentless pursuit of worldly pleasure and power. Through his satiric expose of American religion, Lewis captured the growing cultural and political tension in the 1920s between the forces of secularism and fundamentalism.
Dodsworth (1929) follows Sam Dodsworth, a wealthy, retired Midwestern automobile manufacturer, as he travels through Europe with his increasingly restless wife, Fran. The novel intimately explores the unraveling of their marriage, while pitting the proud heritage of European culture against the rude vigor of American commercialism.
Review
"Lingeman's Sinclair Lewis is a model of its kind: vivid, but never overdrawn, written in a lean, wry prose that stays grounded in the documentary evidence." Wall Street Journal
Review
"The most important reevaluation of Lewis in more than a generation." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Readable, sensitive to nuance. . . . A warm tribute to the quarrelsome, interesting iconoclast." New York Review of Books
Synopsis
In this definitive biography, Richard Lingeman presents an empathetic, absorbing, and balanced portrait of an eccentric alcoholic-workaholic whose novels and stories exploded shibboleths with a volatile mixture of caricature and realism. Drawing on newly uncovered correspondence, diaries, and criticism, Lingeman gives new life to this prairie Mercutio out of Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis mocked such sacrosanct institutions as the small town (Main Street), business (Babbitt), medicine (Arrowsmith), and religion (Elmer Gantry). In this definitive biography, Richard Lingeman presents an empathetic, absorbing, and balanced portrait of an eccentric alcoholic-workaholic whose novels and stories exploded shibboleths with a volatile mixture of caricature and realism. Drawing on newly uncovered correspondence, diaries, and criticism, Lingeman gives new life to this prairie Mercutio out of Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
Synopsis
In this definitive biography of Sinclair Lewis (Main Street, Babbitt), Lingeman presents an empathetic, absorbing, and balanced portrait of an eccentric alcoholic-workaholic whose novels and stories exploded shibboleths with a volatile mixture of caricature and realism. Drawing on newly uncovered correspondence, diaries, and criticism, Lingeman gives new life to this prairie Mercutio out of Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
About the Author
Richard Lingeman is the author of Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey and Small Town America: A Narrative History, 1620-the Present. A senior editor of The Nation, he lives in New York City.