(0)
(0)
(0)
(0)
(0)Sinclair Lewis
1) Babbitt
It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America.
Written during the Great Depression,...
3) Free Air
One of the earliest road-trip novels, Free Air tells the story of Claire Boltwood, who travels from New York City to the Pacific Northwest by automobile. She leaves her rich, snobbish family behind and falls in love with a good, down-to-earth man.
4) Main Street
Carol Milford is an exuberant, liberal-hearted woman who marries a man from a small town. After they marry they settle in his home-town, Gopher Prairie, which Carol finds narrow and ugly. She throws herself into reforming the town, but is met only with derision by her own class. She decides to leave, but finds that the world outside is just as flawed as Gopher Prairie. She remains uncowed, however, declaring "I do not admit that dish-washing is
...American writer Sinclair Lewis was interested in the social implications of the aggressive brand of capitalism that began to emerge in the U. S. the early twentieth century. In The Job, he focuses on the rising stature of women in the workforce, detailing the triumphs and travails of a young woman named Una Golden, who discovers that she has an inborn talent for real estate—and that she must fight against the nearly overwhelming chauvinism
...7) Babbit
10) Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry is the portrait of a silver-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church, yet lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence.
The title character starts out as a greedy, shallow, philandering Baptist minister, turns to evangelism, and eventually becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Throughout the novel, Gantry encounters fellow religious hypocrites. Although often exposed as a
...11) Dodsworth
Meet Sam Dodsworth, an amiable fifty-year-old millionaire and "American Captain of Industry, believing in the Republican Party, high tariffs and, so long as they did not annoy him personally, in Prohibition and the Episcopal Church." Dodsworth runs an auto manufacturing firm, but his beautiful wife, Fran, obsessed with the notion that she is growing old, persuades him to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe. He agrees for the
...