The Pulitzer Trip

1927 Early Autumn Louis Bromfield  339 pages  Summary  The Pentlands, a snobby Massachusetts family, persist in their WASPy ways even as neighboring families die out and are replaced by nouveau riche social climbers. Pentland Manor is ruled by the ferociously etiquette-bound Aunt Cassie. Cassie runs the house in place of her sister-in-law, who is mysteriously housed in one wing of the grand house with a debilitating mental illness and a nurse to tend her. Cassie's brother, John, is the titular head of the family, but he spends his days playing bridge with a female friend of his wife. John's son Anson, the up-and-coming heir of the family, has married a lowly Scots-Irish girl named Olivia, much to the family's grave disappointment. The mismatched couple has one son who is always ill. A breath of fresh air arrives in the form of the Pentland daughter, Sybil, who is returning from school in Paris. A cousin Sabine, also lately from Europe, joins the family. These two free-thi...

    1926  Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis  456 pages  Summary This winner is famous--and infamous--for many reasons. First, the book occupies a special place in Pulitzer history because Sinclair Lewis was the first author to decline the Pulitzer. He wrote a lengthy letter to the committee explaining his reservations. After not receiving the prize for his previous novels, Main Street and Babbit , Lewis objected to the idea of literary awards that single out one work over others. He is not alone in thinking that his earlier novels were the real basis for the 1926 award. Second, Lewis both accurately describes the state of 1920s medicine, and predicts the future fault lines  of the industry. Public Health Reports (2001) said this novel predicted, among other things, that research goals would diverge from clinicians' aims, and that pharmaceutical companies would begin to stress profits over scientific research. Lewis worked so closely with science writer...

1925 So Big by Edna Ferber 230 pages Summary Selina Peake De Jong is an artistic young lady raised by a high-living but itinerant father in various hotels of Chicago. When he suddenly dies, she is left penniless. She decides to teach school in the Dutch-settled community of South Holland. She marries an immigrant onion farmer, and soon finds herself widowed with a young son. She decides to run her husband’s onion farm herself in order to support her son. This involves hard work in the fields, regular trips to the produce markets of Chicago, and dealing with produce buyers as a woman in a man’s world. After watching his mother scrape out a living and sacrifice for his well-being, Dirk grows up wanting to be rich. He attends college, becomes an architect, and then a stockbroker. His mother worries that despite his success, Dirk has no joy in his life. When Dirk falls in loves with a sculptor, he must grapple with the lessons his mother tried to teach him, about making space for be...

  1924 The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson 262 pages Summary This book is virtually forgotten today, probably for three reasons. First, the author uses Scottish dialect for dialogue, which makes for slow reading. Second, the plot revolves around the rape of a young woman, but the word “rape” is never used anywhere in the book. Third, following the rape, the author’s focus lies not on the woman’s reaction, but on how the man in her life will cope with the terrible aftermath. However, the book was praised in its day for its folkloric detail. Christie McNair is part of a strict Scots Covenanters community in Iowa. She is engaged to Wully, and her cousin Peter is the town low-life. After Wully leaves to fight in the Civil War, Peter rapes Christie. Christie is pregnant when Wully returns from war. The focus of the novel is how Wully will deal with Peter and how Wully's life is now changed. Wully chases Peter out of town. He is committed to marrying Christie, but in doing ...

  1923 One of Ours by Willa Cather 459 pages  Summary Cather was skewered by Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway for including romantic conventions in a novel set in World War I.  However, one unique strength of this book is Cather's (heretical) opinion that the European war was a freeing experience for some Americans; it was not just an unrelenting horror.  I personally find Cather's writing to be uneven. She insists on writing from the male perspective--and doesn't do so convincingly. But she is correct in observing that World War I  (as costly as it was to the nation and to individuals) did help Americans see beyond their own borders.    In this novel, a young man from a Nebraska farm, Claude Wheeler, is sent to a Christian college by his parents. There he befriends a fun-loving, free-thinking family, the Ehrlichs. He is called home to help with the family farm, and marries a childhood friend. His wife values Christian and political work over th...

1922 Alice Adams   by  Booth Tarkington 264 pages  Summary  Booth Tarkington won both the second and fifth Pulitzers ever awarded (see Entry #2, 1919: The Magnificent Ambersons ). Once again, this story examines the interplay of class, ambition, and personal happiness at just the right moment, when rapid changes were transforming choices for young people. Critics have said that this book verges on being a morality play because it carries such a strong message. However, the broad appeal of this book is evident in the successful movie adaptation. Alice Adams is the daughter of a modest Indiana business man. She is a likely candidate to attend the local secretarial school, but she disdains the idea of work. Alice and her mother harbor ambitions that cause them to act grander than the family really is. In contrast, Alice's brother goes to the other extreme. He flaunts his disregard for hypocritical conventions and keeps very low company . Alice sets her sights on...

1921 The Age of Innocence ,  by Edith Wharton  384 pages Summary: Wharton’s reputation suffered for a time from the "Jane Austen effect." Because she wrote about social mores and marriageable women, her books are often dismissed as escapist fluff or melodrama. In reality, Wharton was a rebel in her day, tackling unpleasant topics and social gray areas. In this novel, Wharton based the story on the uncomfortable question: Is an abused wife obligated to stay with her husband? What is a family’s duty to support a daughter after an untenable marriage?  Archer Newland is a lawyer among the New York blue bloods. He is resigned to marry a stolid, unimaginative young woman--until her exciting, unconventional cousin comes to town. Countess Ellen Olenska is fleeing an abusive marriage to a Polish count. As a potential divorcee, Ellen is a social embarrassment to her family. Newland, as a lawyer and practically a family  member, is enlisted to talk Ellen out of a scandalous di...