Main Street

📖 The Scoop

‘Main Street’ is the novel accredited with launching Sinclair's trailblazing career. Unlike his contemporaries Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Sinclair chooses to focus on middle America, the rural Midwest, rather than the upper crusts of New York and Paris.

We follow a young, idealistic woman as she desperately tries to implement her grand plans to change her small town for the better. The novel teems with life, offering a view in to the very soul of America, the death of its healthy curiosity, and its desire to see the bigger picture.

It is an entertaining and haunting novel that is built upon characters with incredible depth. There are no over-arching protagonists; they are all painfully, beautifully human. If you loved James Dean's ‘Rebel without a Cause’, you will love this classic.

Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American author and playwright. A Yale graduate, Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. He became renowned for his biting critiques and satire of American capitalism and materialism in the inter-war years. Additionally, he is remembered for his strong characterisations of modern working women in his novels. His most notable works include ́The Trail of the Hawk ́, ́Main Street ́, ́Free Air ́, and ́Babbitt ́.

Genre: Fiction / General (fancy, right?)