The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-15
nrREE AIR :,

 | in every chapter in the book.
 FREE AIR"
 i By Sinclair Lewis. Harcourt, Brace & | Howe. publishers. New York city
 i Here is a true romance Not story i in archaic dialest written by a young girl whose ideas of romance are confined to costume and titles, but tale of today. American as corn on the cob. brimming with youth and adventure and telling a love story as enchanting as a spring day. l The personages of the story are delight | full company and the scenery-well, it ! keeps you out in the open air for you are jumped right into an automobile on it's way across the continent from Minne- apolis to Seattle, and prairie, mountain, i river and the winding road, not to say 1 the at times extremely muddy riod are spread before your eyes. Mir. Lewis can l give the feel of reality of his descrip- | tionS, which are not so much descriptions as impresSionS-the sort of impressions that would come to you were you at the wheel of your own car, faring forth across then miles day after day in what ever weather.
 | It is a book of this sort that heartens l one as to the future, one might as well come out flat any say the present, of l American literature It is good a book and yet so distinctly American. A
  we'll as human Lewis book is human, but it is an American story in every page. The very plot, for all that it is the old story of the princess and the swineherd of fairy lore, is utterly our own. This young man could have ex- isted nowhere but here nowhere, per haps, but there in the further middle west, where he ran his garage and stood in danger of conffaing his ambitions and effors to becoming the big man of the tiny town where he had been born, but who had the brains, the courage and the initiative, which, given an im- lpetus might land him anywhere. and do land him far on the road of his desire before the story ends.
 For his heroine MT. Lewis has chosen a young woman born to the purple of Brooklyn society which as he explains, is place of wealth too solid to emulate the nimble, self-advertising of Fifth ave- nue. Here in brick house of much dig ntiy, much ugliness, and much conserva- tory" she dwelt with her father, a widower, who is at the point of nervous breakdown when the story opens. Claire had led guarded life, and was quite ignorant of anything approaching the real America. But she is a girl of force and character, and she is not contented with the narrow precincts, emotional and intellectual as we'll as geographical, in which she lives. t1
 MT. Lewis is capable of hitting hard at American faults. He deals the bad food and bad hotels which have earned the curses of travellers these many years all over this broad land some thwacks that should leave a mark. He does not spare comment on the surface bad manners of our young America, but he shows the kindliness and good humor that lie te- heath! It is the sloppiness of mind and bearing, the easy atisfaction, that |. irritates him, as it does others, faults . which, if not grave, develop into a chear , jvulgarity, a cheap boastfuiness, a com lplete disregard of fineness in speech or life of feeling which are grave. There , l is plenty of humor in the authors com ments on these and. other faults, but , there is no condoning of them. They ought not to be condoned. They sif6ul6 be knocked out of existence.
 MT. Lewis poses the question, poses il for pretty much al lof us. Free air ol the stuffy conventionalities of life which? The stuffy conventianalities have a number of pleasant things to them and Claire has her reactionary moments even weeks. But Claire nas the instinct | for play an instinct rare enough 1T women, and she can play in tho free , air with Milt Dasgett
 There is no doubt about it, MT. Lewis makes playing with Milt thoroughly en- joyable thing to do. When, Milt gets into society at Seattle, for Milt is pre- pared to go any length in his pursuit oi i, the princess, you side with Milt anc with Milt's notion of what is and wha' | is not worth while in life. Mflt car learn the essentials and is learning them
 The rest of the paraphernalia doesn' ma tier.
 !, The book is amusing. interesting, alive , to its final period. We have only ont
 quarrel with it, a personal distaste fol , lthe frequent use of .'uh" In the dia ,, Hog, a modernism that grows trifle ir < ritating with repetition.
 M'ARONI BALLADS.~ M . By T. A. Daly. Harcourt. Brace
 Howe, Publishers, New York City.
 Tom Daly Chis readers arc all his lov
 ers,, and refuse to Mister him) wa horn in Philadelphia, in 1871. and has bee