Main Street

Sinclair Lewis was the first American novelist to win the Nobel Prize. MAIN STREET is his first important book, a closely observed, elegantly written satire of small-town life at the onset of the Jazz Age. At once an artifact and a modern classic, its characters' slang and civic amenities are exotic--their social and personal concerns wholly familiar. Brian Emerson has a pleasant voice; excellent diction; a bright amiable pace; and the stamina to sustain him through 18 hours of narrative. He delivers the text adequately but without distinction, subtext, or nuance. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Occasionally author, novel and narrator mesh really well; so it is with this reading of Lewis's satirical, yet affectionate, portrait of small-town America in the 1920's. The modern parallel is Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Protagonist Carol Kennicott fails to transform the dull ordinariness she finds in Gopher Prairie, but her attempt is grand and grandly told by Barbara Caruso. Caruso's wry voice provides just the right characterizations for the frustrated Kennicott; her patient, but misunderstanding, husband; and the uncertain townspeople. Listeners will sense in Caruso's reading what is conveyed in Lewis's writing--raised eyebrows, knowing looks, a mix of condescension and tolerance. T.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

With vocal naturalism and a wonderful feel for the author's prose, narrator Kitty Hendrix makes this first masterwork by Sinclair Lewis sound as fresh and real as the day it was published in October 1920. Through his depiction of the fictitious town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, Lewis offers penetrating detail, memorable characters, and wry observations. The novel captures the optimism, fierce pride, and fear of change that sometimes made small-town Midwestern life so distinct. Hendrix's nuanced portrayal of the intelligent and idealistic city girl who arrives in town ready to take on the world brings this production to another level. This audiobook shows why Carol Kennicott remains one of the most complex and fully realized female characters in American literature. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine