Sinclair Lewis

Rebel From Main Street

Author Richard Lingeman

Minnesota Historical Society Press (June 1, 2005)

Description

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.

Author information

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.

Reviews and news

Praise for Sinclair Lewis:

"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

"The most important reevaluation of Lewis in more than a generation. . . . it will certainly provide a biographical touchstone for new conversations."
Los Angeles Times

"Readable, sensitive to nuance. . . . A warm tribute to the quarrelsome, interesting iconoclast."
New York Review of Books

"[Lingeman] rightfully restores the reputation of a great American satirist storyteller, and social commentator in this graceful and honest biography."
Utne Reader

• 704 pages
• 6 x 9 inches
• ISBN: 9780873515412