Babbitt

1922, undated (see below) Harcourt, Brace and Company edition
Sinclair Lewis
Babbitt
Bought used for $7.50
Hardcover with worn corners
B+

I don't know if this is a first edition, but I think it's pre-1925, because it's by the "author of Main Street," with no mention of Lewis's Pulitzer-Prize-winning Arrowsmith.  In any case, it's one of Lewis's books that was instantly popular, and indeed there was a silent-film version in '24.  As Wikipedia notes, "Critics have posed reasons for the book's continuing accessibility to include Lewis's seeming success in identifying and portraying emotions, challenges, and concerns that remain relatively stable over time."  Like Main Street, it should feel more dated than it does.  But George Babbitt would fit in well with 1950s go-getters, and even modern-day successes who feel like there's something missing in their lives.  It is, however, a very 1920s book, with Babbitt's 19-year-old son, Ted, rushing into marriage with the flapper next door, and with so much of the 20th-century, particularly advertizing, still new although already standardized.

Babbitt is a middle-aged realtor (not a real-estate man, he repeatedly emphasizes), and he seems to be living the American Dream.  But he dreams of a "fairy child," a woman who will understand him as his loyal but unimaginative wife, Myra, does not.  To the modern reader, it's clear that Babbitt's true love is his old friend Paul.  It's not necessarily a romantic love but it certainly qualifies as bromantic.  When Paul goes to jail for attempted murder of his shrewish wife, Zilla, Babbitt falls apart.  He has an affair, drinks too much, and worst of all starts spouting "liberal" opinions.  Only Myra's appendicitis can bring him back to the straight and narrow path.  And yet, he realizes that his son has a chance to live the life he wants, and he agrees to support Ted's decisions, including dropping out of college to become a mechanic.

Babbitt isn't necessarily likable, since he's a lying, cheating bully.  Yet Lewis makes you understand him.  Like Carol Kennicott, his rebellion is unsuccessful, and in some ways more tragic because he doesn't even understand why he's rebelling.  The narrators speak in the language of each protagonist, so Main Street is as wry yet naive as Carol, while the language of this novel-- all the pep and boosterism and slang-- is beautifully ugly.

Also, Lewis this time creates a world.  It's one thing to put together a small town like Gopher Prairie, but this is his first book set in Zenith, Winnemac.  Zenith is about 100 times the size of Gopher Prairie, and it's the city with zip.  (I wonder if it's deliberate that both it and anti-wife Zilla start with Z.)  Lewis shows us various neighborhoods and businesses in Zenith, some of them on the illegal side.  (This may well be my earliest book to refer to cocaine, and I'm pretty sure it's the first to address the impact of Prohibition.)  In Arrowsmith, Lewis will tell us, "The state of Winnemac is bounded by Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and like them it is half Eastern, half Midwestern."

There's also a sense that Lewis is foreshadowing future books, with topics hinted at here and addressed later:  religion (Elmer Gantry), Americans abroad (Dodsworth), and even, briefly, courageous scientists (Arrowsmith).  The Dodsworth family is mentioned, although I think a different branch than Sam and Fran.