Carrie Kennicott and her doctor husband

Nothing of great literature here... although it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In fact, it tied with Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. But, like Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons, it has not withstood the test of time. Its prose is sometimes clunky and wooden, the dialogue contrived. Tarkington and Lewis were #1 best sellers more times than any other authors, up until mega-authors like Stephen King and Danielle Steel started to take over the top spot on the charts.

On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky. She saw no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the blinking windows of skyscrapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

(spoiler alert)

Sinclair turned down sharing the Pulitzer Prize award because he felt the business of giving out awards had no integrity, that the books chosen were showing some judge's favoritism for unfair reasons. Even if the novel truly earned the award, there were a lot of other books just as good that did not get a mentioned, he felt.

1920 to 1929 The Jazz Age, Relegated to the Dust Bin