Main Street— Sinclair Lewis

I want to call this a droll, observant little book, but it isn’t little.  There’s just something about Lewis’s targets here— the tiny universe of Gopher Prairie and its chipper reformer, Carol Kennicott— that give the book a satisfying lightness, even as its critiques draw blood.  That’s not to say it isn’t moving; Lewis applies the same light touch to the book’s true tragedies as he does its petty small town intrigues, which has the effect of making them all the more heartbreaking.  I wept openly reading this on the train.  I also laughed and felt the hot pinch of Carol’s frustrations as though they were my own.  You will too, if you read it, so do.

Main Street—Sinclair Lewis