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Sinclair Lewis: Rebel From Main Street
In this definitive biography of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis, 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.
704 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 18, 2020
It had been a long time, 44 years in fact, between Mark Schorer's 1961 award-winning literary biography of Sinclair Lewis and this one (2005). It was badly needed, and Richard R. Lingeman did a great job. It does appear in retrospect that Schorer had been too rough on Lewis, implicitly holding him to Eastern-Establishment norms, when in fact much of Lewis's strength derived from the fact that he was a small-town Minnesotan who took on the Eastern literary establishment, and won. This bio is too long and could have used a little trimming, but it is a definite improvement over the Schorer bio and deserves to be read for years to come. Find out what motivated the man who gave the world Main Street, Babbitt, Dodsworth, It Can't Happen Here, Kingsblood Royal and so many other significant novels and other writings.
April 7, 2023
Interesting to read about someone so against the grain of Modernist approaches and therefore disliked on aesthetic grounds while also being disliked by conventional conservatives for his attacks on small town sensibilities, the business mind-set, and evangelicalism. For all his skill at societal analyses, Lewis often remained oblivious to the needs and identities of others. The descriptions of his monologues are enough to make me dislike him, yet I do appreciate that he was an excellent mimic of Midwest speakers and of other writers.
Some of Lewis' novels sound dire. So much agonizing over plot... But I recall liking some of the more well-known ones when I read them decades ago.
Richard Lingeman does as good a job as one could do, at this remove from Lewis' time (he died in 1951) and from the context of the times. A sad life told well. This is a readable and well-researched biography.
Some of Lewis' novels sound dire. So much agonizing over plot... But I recall liking some of the more well-known ones when I read them decades ago.
Richard Lingeman does as good a job as one could do, at this remove from Lewis' time (he died in 1951) and from the context of the times. A sad life told well. This is a readable and well-researched biography.
December 19, 2008
The things Lewis satirized in his novels and stories are still around: the notion that business is sacred, that wealth is holy, that workers ought to be grateful they have jobs, that labor organizing is a sin, that people should believe what they're told and natives should suspect immigrants of treasonous ideas. We haven't actually come very far since 1920.
May 10, 2023
“THE LITERARY SOCIOLOGIST”
The subtitle of Mr. Lingeman’s biography about Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is “Rebel from Main Street” and is apt. Mr. Lewis wrote twenty-one novels during his career. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and was the United States’ first Nobel Prize winner in literature. Four of his works (Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), and Elmer Gantry (1927)) are still popular. A fifth work, ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ (1935), came back into vogue when Donald Trump won the presidency. I didn’t care for ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ but I didn’t care for Foghorn Leghorn Trump either, so there you go. Mr. Lewis’s accomplishments are impressive for a small town, Minnesota boy. Mr. Lingeman describes the avid-reading Lewis’s upbringing in a religious conservative rural world where hardworking citizens were the norm. Mr. Lewis was an outlier. Unlike his two older brothers, he had a terrible work ethic as a youngster and the tall redheaded pimply kid was frequently ridiculed by classmates. Mr. Lewis attended Yale University and was also considered an odd bird on campus but higher learning inspired him to seriously pursue writing as a career. The biography was published in 2002.
Mr. Lewis was a peripatetic job-hopper before literary success and easily bored when staying too long in one place, even after he got married. I’ve read many biographies over the decades about authors and eccentricity sure seems to be a career requirement. Mr. Lingeman explains what personal experiences influenced Lewis’s work. Hobnobbing with other writers and publishers was essential for him finding avenues to initially get his work published and becoming a Saturday Evening Post contributor was his first major career turning point. While he enjoyed the generous Saturday Evening Post payments for his short stories, liberal Mr. Lewis was increasingly rankled by the conservative dictates of its publisher George Lorimer. His first major hit, ‘Main Street,’ quickly propelled him into literary stardom and severed ties with the Saturday Evening Post. Mr. Lingeman explains why ‘Main Street,’ his first bestseller, was such a sensation. Besides it being a well-crafted work, cultural timing was essential. Public taste is a fickle thing. The post-World War I zeitgeist was receptive to Mr. Lewis’s satirical take on small-town America. The author moved on to lampoon other aspects of American culture. They included advertising; corporate language; marketing patriotism for either economic or political objectives; high society, even in small towns; religion, especially its many hucksters; middle-sized cities capitalist boosterism; the terror of social ostracism; jingoism; class; penal, corporal, and capital punishment; racism; and American fascism. Mr. Lewis hobnobbed with literary and social notables of his time. What especially made his most influential novels so good was his level of commitment to researching the topics. While Mr. Lingeman describes Mr. Lewis as a “hyperkinetic personality,” it sure sounded like Sinclair Lewis would’ve been diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) if he was strutting around today. His twilight years are just friggin’ sad. The book includes 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.
Based upon ‘Sinclair Lewis,’ the late erudite author comes across as eccentric and self-centered. Mr. Lingeman implies that a history of alcoholism contributed to Sinclair Lewis drifting deeper into the disease. His excessive drinking was a major contributor to the demise of his marriages, torpedoing friendships, and diminishing his writing. The married dude also had his pee-pee sampling numerous women. He was a detached, absent father and constantly needed to be the center of attention, even over his own children. Despite his remarkable observation skills, talents, and literary accolades, Mr. Lewis comes across in the book as perpetually immature, even pathetic. Mr. Lingeman’s Sinclair Lewis biography is another example of authors and other artists posturing, partying, and putting down others whenever they get together. The late author and screenwriter William Goldman’s statement that “It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird” is reinforced by this biography. Instead of mingling with such venomous popinjays I’d rather have a colonoscopy where the doctor uses a ticked-off cobra to examine my poop chute. ‘Sinclair Lewis’ is a thorough interesting biography if you have a keen interest in the influential author, otherwise, you’ll likely find it boring.
The subtitle of Mr. Lingeman’s biography about Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is “Rebel from Main Street” and is apt. Mr. Lewis wrote twenty-one novels during his career. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and was the United States’ first Nobel Prize winner in literature. Four of his works (Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), and Elmer Gantry (1927)) are still popular. A fifth work, ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ (1935), came back into vogue when Donald Trump won the presidency. I didn’t care for ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ but I didn’t care for Foghorn Leghorn Trump either, so there you go. Mr. Lewis’s accomplishments are impressive for a small town, Minnesota boy. Mr. Lingeman describes the avid-reading Lewis’s upbringing in a religious conservative rural world where hardworking citizens were the norm. Mr. Lewis was an outlier. Unlike his two older brothers, he had a terrible work ethic as a youngster and the tall redheaded pimply kid was frequently ridiculed by classmates. Mr. Lewis attended Yale University and was also considered an odd bird on campus but higher learning inspired him to seriously pursue writing as a career. The biography was published in 2002.
Mr. Lewis was a peripatetic job-hopper before literary success and easily bored when staying too long in one place, even after he got married. I’ve read many biographies over the decades about authors and eccentricity sure seems to be a career requirement. Mr. Lingeman explains what personal experiences influenced Lewis’s work. Hobnobbing with other writers and publishers was essential for him finding avenues to initially get his work published and becoming a Saturday Evening Post contributor was his first major career turning point. While he enjoyed the generous Saturday Evening Post payments for his short stories, liberal Mr. Lewis was increasingly rankled by the conservative dictates of its publisher George Lorimer. His first major hit, ‘Main Street,’ quickly propelled him into literary stardom and severed ties with the Saturday Evening Post. Mr. Lingeman explains why ‘Main Street,’ his first bestseller, was such a sensation. Besides it being a well-crafted work, cultural timing was essential. Public taste is a fickle thing. The post-World War I zeitgeist was receptive to Mr. Lewis’s satirical take on small-town America. The author moved on to lampoon other aspects of American culture. They included advertising; corporate language; marketing patriotism for either economic or political objectives; high society, even in small towns; religion, especially its many hucksters; middle-sized cities capitalist boosterism; the terror of social ostracism; jingoism; class; penal, corporal, and capital punishment; racism; and American fascism. Mr. Lewis hobnobbed with literary and social notables of his time. What especially made his most influential novels so good was his level of commitment to researching the topics. While Mr. Lingeman describes Mr. Lewis as a “hyperkinetic personality,” it sure sounded like Sinclair Lewis would’ve been diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) if he was strutting around today. His twilight years are just friggin’ sad. The book includes 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.
Based upon ‘Sinclair Lewis,’ the late erudite author comes across as eccentric and self-centered. Mr. Lingeman implies that a history of alcoholism contributed to Sinclair Lewis drifting deeper into the disease. His excessive drinking was a major contributor to the demise of his marriages, torpedoing friendships, and diminishing his writing. The married dude also had his pee-pee sampling numerous women. He was a detached, absent father and constantly needed to be the center of attention, even over his own children. Despite his remarkable observation skills, talents, and literary accolades, Mr. Lewis comes across in the book as perpetually immature, even pathetic. Mr. Lingeman’s Sinclair Lewis biography is another example of authors and other artists posturing, partying, and putting down others whenever they get together. The late author and screenwriter William Goldman’s statement that “It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird” is reinforced by this biography. Instead of mingling with such venomous popinjays I’d rather have a colonoscopy where the doctor uses a ticked-off cobra to examine my poop chute. ‘Sinclair Lewis’ is a thorough interesting biography if you have a keen interest in the influential author, otherwise, you’ll likely find it boring.
February 17, 2020
"The Sinclairs", Upton and Lewis, always seemed like second-teamers in the literary fashionability game. Too prolific, too focused on social problems, not obscure enough in their intent. As for Red Lewis, oftentimes his satire was broad enough to give serious literary types an excuse to ignore him. That said, he wrote with sensitivity about the situations Americans (and he was uniquely American) found themselves in. He was a very useful writer - his analyses of business, small-town life, religion, and fascism are all part of our national shorthand on those matters, a hundred years after the publication of Main Street. A 2020 tech bro update of Babbitt would be juicy, indeed. This is the only Lewis biography I've read. You get the picture with regard to his spectacular alcoholism and messy personal life. Lingeman's Lewis is a huge success for a decade but always a disfigured and insecure outsider from Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
June 7, 2020
I enjoyed this bio of Lewis very much. I read Mark Schorer's bio probably 30 years ago and I recall having the impression that Schorer just didnt like Lewis much, which is fine, but its a marked difference between Lingerman's bio and Schorer's as Lingerman tells the story without giving me the feeling he didn't like Lewis...but rather I had the impression Lingerman at least respected Lewis...maybe even liked him.....but the story is told with clear open eyes that helped me to understand Sinclair Lewis and his books...and to respect if not like him. Well done!
December 11, 2018
This biography goes a ways toward restoring some of Sinclair Lewis's stature. In addition to his books that were the best sellers of the 20s and made him our first Nobel Laureate in Literature, he also wrote a book called "It Can't Happen Here," which proved it could happen here. Here's a review I did for the Los Angeles Times back in the day
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/...
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/...
September 20, 2012
As a budding (and *very* long to sprout) writer in high school, Sinclair Lewis was one of my favorites. A perceptive analyst of American mores and concerns during the culturally progressive but also intensely conformist era of the 1920s, Lewis focused more on the "middling" folk of the American Midwest rather than on Fitzgerald's glittering noveau riche aristocracy or Hemingway's bohemian expatriates. His novels, such as MAIN STREET, BABBITT, and ELMER GANTRY, pierced the small-town commercial hysteria sweeping the country and dictating its politics and culture like few others, setting an example to others and arguably still setting one today. His work, though, was in some ways too narrowly focused, unlike that of Hemingway or Fitzgerald, and as a result he suffered something of a critical downturn after his death, especially in the 1960s.
Richard Lingeman, a writer at the Nation and a former biographer of Theodore Dreiser, seeks to rescue "Red" Lewis from his unjust posthumous reputation with this handsome biography, analyzing Lewis in detail and carefully noting how his life and observations contributed to his work. In many ways it's a sad story. Lewis was perfectly poised to serve as a satirical poet for the flyover states' "Jazz Age," but found himself personally and artistically adrift when the Depression hit and his own beloved progressive political movements were overtaken by more radical alternatives, such as communism and fascism (addressed in Lewis' IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE). He always doubted his own powers as a writer, and perpetually worried that his best years were past (a worry, of course, coming inevitably true). His alcoholism and occasional misogyny irreparably damaged his relationships, especially his late marriage to renowned journalist Dorothy Thompson, who would become more famous than Lewis by the 1930s. Lingeman does an admirable job of chronicling Lewis' life and work, and of demonstrating his continuing relevance to American culture. My only quibble is that analysis of the work is too dispersed, and could benefit from perhaps more chapter-specific treatments (especially BABBITT, which helped to name and define an entire subspecies of American manhood). Nevertheless, it's an excellent work, and one of the best literary biographies I've ever read.
Richard Lingeman, a writer at the Nation and a former biographer of Theodore Dreiser, seeks to rescue "Red" Lewis from his unjust posthumous reputation with this handsome biography, analyzing Lewis in detail and carefully noting how his life and observations contributed to his work. In many ways it's a sad story. Lewis was perfectly poised to serve as a satirical poet for the flyover states' "Jazz Age," but found himself personally and artistically adrift when the Depression hit and his own beloved progressive political movements were overtaken by more radical alternatives, such as communism and fascism (addressed in Lewis' IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE). He always doubted his own powers as a writer, and perpetually worried that his best years were past (a worry, of course, coming inevitably true). His alcoholism and occasional misogyny irreparably damaged his relationships, especially his late marriage to renowned journalist Dorothy Thompson, who would become more famous than Lewis by the 1930s. Lingeman does an admirable job of chronicling Lewis' life and work, and of demonstrating his continuing relevance to American culture. My only quibble is that analysis of the work is too dispersed, and could benefit from perhaps more chapter-specific treatments (especially BABBITT, which helped to name and define an entire subspecies of American manhood). Nevertheless, it's an excellent work, and one of the best literary biographies I've ever read.
August 17, 2021
Updated Biography of Sinclair Lewis, Lingeman builds on (and often just copies) Mark Schorer's 1961 definite biography. Unlike Shorer, who disdained Lewis, Lingeman sympathizes with Lewis, and presents the case that Lewis is still worth reading, and was a force for good.. Also, Lingeman doesn't lose the forest for the trees, and does a much better job of presenting the events in Lewis' life (note: his biography is about 50% the length of Shorer's).
On the negative side, the biography is astounding dumbed-down and badly sourced. The author constantly makes assertions that are unsupported by sources. And we get the usual odd errors and Left-wing cant that infest in every 21st Century book about the 1930's and 1940's. No, Charles Lindbergh was NOT "Pro-Nazi", HUAC had nothing to do with race relations, and the vast majority of Americans were AGAINST getting involved in WW2. And I sincerely doubt Lewis sponsored a 1941 play by a Jewish author to "squelch rumors he was an antisemite" given his track record on bigotry and his long-term Jewish Mistress. Finally, Schorer is weirdly described as a "product of the anticommunist 1950s" (!) - which would have been news to him.
Summary: I read Updike's review in the New Yorker, and thought he was overly harsh, but now agree with it.
On the negative side, the biography is astounding dumbed-down and badly sourced. The author constantly makes assertions that are unsupported by sources. And we get the usual odd errors and Left-wing cant that infest in every 21st Century book about the 1930's and 1940's. No, Charles Lindbergh was NOT "Pro-Nazi", HUAC had nothing to do with race relations, and the vast majority of Americans were AGAINST getting involved in WW2. And I sincerely doubt Lewis sponsored a 1941 play by a Jewish author to "squelch rumors he was an antisemite" given his track record on bigotry and his long-term Jewish Mistress. Finally, Schorer is weirdly described as a "product of the anticommunist 1950s" (!) - which would have been news to him.
Summary: I read Updike's review in the New Yorker, and thought he was overly harsh, but now agree with it.
November 14, 2020
Pitiful Minnesota man repeatedly making an ass of himself around world, God bless him. I love this guy enough to read a biography longer than War and Peace.
January 7, 2012
A fantastic -- and fantastically objective -- exploration of a complex and tragic figure, for whom the trappings success mocked his social satire. Prone to hack work that likely led to his ever-decreasing stature, Sinclair Lewis seems a likely influence on fellow Minnesotans the Coen Brothers, possibly evidenced by Fargo's William H. Macy character (a perfect Babbitt) and Barton Fink's working man (John Goodman), who mocks Fink's pretensions to write for the masses, politically, profitably or both. That's a thesis I haven't time to prove; feel free to steal. At any rate, Lingeman writes like the kind of friend who won't buy a pal's self-deception. The result: Lewis' life and work as seen from a view obscured by neither stars nor knives. Now go read Babbitt: Written in 1922, all that's missing from the 21st Century is the cubicle.
May 22, 2024
This is what the Minnesota Historical Societal Press said about Mr. Lewis.
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.
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.
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July 15, 2010This biography of American's first Nobel prizewinner for literature is REALLY interesting on at least three fronts. It presents a terrific portrait of publishing in the 20s, 30s and 40s. It makes me REALLY glad I am not a genius novelist, since the prerequistes seem to be alcoholism and a heavy-duty case of manic-depressive disorder. And since I'd just finished reading a bio of John Galsworthy, a contemporary, it was really cool to meet the same people from a different perspective.
October 27, 2021
An incredibly well-written biography of a man who was America's first Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930. Lewis clearly led a troubled, self-destructive life in many ways, but there is no question that he gave all he had whenever he wrote, and we are all made the better for his efforts.
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