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The Author. Friendly Critic Carl Van Doren says: "Sinclair Lewis will outlast John Galsworthy." Van Doren regards Lewis as "the quintessence of the U. S. . . . Much as he has traveled, he remains something of the Middle Westerner, a little confused by New York, a little awed by Europe, a little suspicious before complexity and elegance though at the same time delighted with them. A satirist at home or with other Americans, he is a patriot abroad or with foreigners."
Tall, angular, awkward, with thinning reddish hair, bulging eyes in a blotchy red face, Sinclair Lewis would look not unlike a mummy if he were ever in repose. He talks in a high, quick voice, laughs neighingly, loves to keep changing the subject, to mimic, which he does ably. He hates crowds but cannot stand being alone, is shy but bumptious, eager but bitter.
Born in Sauk Center, Minn. 48 years ago, Harry Sinclair Lewis has been a Yaleman (A. B. 1907), a janitor (at Upton Sinclair's Utopian Helicon Hall), smalltown newshawk, charity worker, publisher's hack. Associated Pressman (discharged for incompetence), Satevepostman. When Main Street surprised him by becoming a best-seller he was able to take himself seriously as a writer. Whether or not he enjoys publicity he has had his full share. Headlines blared when he: turned down the Pulitzer Prize (1926), gave God ten minutes to strike him dead (in Kansas City, 1927), won the Nobel Prize, attacked the American Academy, was smacked by Theodore Dreiser (1931) when he accused Dreiser of plagiarism.
Restless, Sinclair Lewis has wandered far from Sauk Center, writes his books wherever he happens to be. After finishing Ann Vickers last August, he went to Austria for "an indefinite stay."