The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1922-03-30
Sinclair Leuis Has a NeU
Nouel Ready for Publishers


DIR. E. C. Lewis of Sank Centre is
in receipt of letta from his son
Sinclair Lewis, now in Europe stat
ing that his new book will be finish
ed soon when he expects to return to
the United States and visit his faith
er in Sank Centre and his brother in
st. Cloud.
Sir John Foster Fraser, e'ebrated
London correspondent and lecture
recently prepared the following arti-
Gle relative to the former Sank Cen
tire Dung man, which was publishet
in the Evening Standard of London
recently. Mr.. Fraser's article fol-
lows herewith:
Sinclair Lewis is finishing another
novel. 1t is all about an ordinary
business man in an. American manu-
much of it in his fiat. in ST.. James.
Everybody in England does not
know who Sinclair Lewis is. But ev-
erybody in the United States does.
There are lots of folks in England
who never heard of Main Street"
But (writes vagabond correspond
ent) all last year in America you
trolley car or a restaurant without
seeing people reading Main Street"
When you arrived in place the re-
porter did not inquire What do you
read Main Street," 1t was the etern-
al topic of conversation over the
doughnuts and, coffee.
Main Street" is a novel about the
most ordinary middle western town
in America. 1t is largely about mar
row-minded. mean people, with no
vision and with all the, pettinesses to
be found in a small burg.
~ The English Idea
Of course English folk picture mid
dle-western towns of the United States
as fine breezy places. where life is
little rough, but hearty and genial,
of companship. And that is
how Americans would like English
people to think of those thousands of
towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin
and Iowa and Illinois
Then Sinclair Lewis wrote about
the Town of Gopher Prairie.
If any English novelist could ana
had written that book he would hav"
been shot at sight in Kalamazoo, or
Ypsllanti or Albert Lea or Sioux City
as a slanderer of the noblest people
But as it was written by middle,
westerner, read in innesota all
Americans have read it and all small
towns say it is photograph!cally &C.
When you have read Main Street
you have the truest picture that mas
ever been written of life In Nme"ica.
On High Stools ut Two A. VI.
l first met Sinclair Lewis In Mar
kato Minnesota, two years ago. He
was then writing book. Buy why In
Mankato? Because he was Wrltng
about the sort of undistinguished peo-
town like Mankato. And at half-past
two in the morning we sat on h1gh
stools before the counter or an all,
night open eating house. ate ham ana
egs and talked books And the otner
evening when was taking my lemon
adeA in the Bohemian part of the Cafe
ROYAL. there tumbled in a long, thin.
sandy haired, freckled, ordinary man
Between Mankato and the Cafe
Royal he had become the widest read
novelist in the United States. Literary
societies discussed him. He mas neen
pean tongue. Main Street" has been
adapted to the stage, and is touring
Gods own country. Maybe 1t mas
reached the highest pinnacle of fame
and been filmed 1t has been sold by
the hundred thousand in America.
Sinclair Lewis is not at all like the
popular conception of novelist--out
no novelist ever is. He didn't start
When his middle-western thirst
had been attended to he addressed
me.
Say, can you tell me where in Lon
don can buy shirts that Will MT me-
You see, 1 take 15-inch collar, put
I've got long arms OF course, L can
get shirts with arms long enough, but,
then, I'm not Is inches round the
right for my neck, why, the sleeves
come Just below my elbows. I've apol-
ogized to the gentlemen in your SHIRT
shops for not being standard size, ana
hoy
with me.
IT like England? Sure, I do. Eng
land is the incest part of America.
But when are your people gong TO
understand that Americans are not all
pot-stomached moneymakers? That an
American should be a scholar, 1netr-
ested in the past delettanfe, seeIos
to strike many of you as strange; "
course | know you no longer pelieVe
we chase the buffalo with ix-shooters
down Broadway, but I've noticed II
does cause a little surprise AMONGST
some English when they meet an An IN :
nose. isn't always boasting and THINKS
about other things than making
money.
Books of the Wild West
American books seems 70 me sIs :
read all the worst American DOCKS
over here, just as you look at mos.
popular United States novels read "a
England today. Why most or the Wllo
West, cow punching, iuHiuoi
sort You think that is the only KIM
of novel we turn out. No you don,
but lots of your countrymen do. l
can't say that the novel of American
life as it really is today is much ap-
precited over here 1t isn't that you
are prejudiced. but you come across
modes of speech, phrases. words that
are not understood, and there is
tendency to dismiss the book as not
real literature because it is full OF
American slang.
IT know lots of you are tremend-
ousIy interested in Russian books; the
life depicted is fascinating to you. But
when YOU come across an American
book depicting rural American life.
there is a disposition to treat 1t as
though it were written in defective
English. You like books with the
y Cockney accent reproduced: some OF
you get sentimental reading books
where the characters speak in the
Scotch tongue.
you've got Lancashire and Somer-
set dialects, but I've noticed that when
the average Englishman comes across
a book in which Minnesota people
speak the language spoken In Mime,
sofa you are inclined to be irritateo
because you don't understand.