To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor-car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism. The office was his pirate ship but the car his perilous excursion ashore. He explained that because the award was meant for books that celebrate American wholesomeness, his novels, which are critical, should not be awarded the prize. With the scientific aspects of the book Lewis collaborated with Dr. Paul De Kruif. He then used experts for technical advice in other books.
Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize. In 1925 Lewis divorced from his first wife and married three years later Dorothy Thompson, a newspaper correspondent. During the 1930s Lewis devoted considerable attention to the theater. In 1942 he was divorced from his second wife. Two years later his older son was killed in World War II combat in France.