Sinclair Lewis Remembered

101. Dorothy Thompson

101 / Dorothy Thompson His former wife, Dorothy Thompson, supplies more details of the evening. Source: Dorothy Thompson, “The Boy and Man from Sauk Centre,” Atlantic Monthly 206 (No­ vem­ ber 1960): 41.­ Sinclair Lewis had received the news of his older son’s death in the fall of 1944 in a manner that seemed utterly feelingless. He was on a lecture tour en route to Chicago when the news came over the radio that Lieutenant Wells Lewis had been shot in Alsace by a sniper and killed instantly while studying a map with General Dahlquist, to whom he was aide-­ de-­ camp. My gentle, sensitive sister, who was devoted to ­ Sinclair Lewis and to Wells and of whom Lewis was fond, felt that the news which he might not have heard should be broken to him lovingly and went to the railroad station but missed him. He had scheduled a party for the evening, to which my sister and her husband had been invited. They phoned the Palmer House,19 thinking it might have been called off. Lewis had already left for the party, and they went. There they found him in the liveliest possible mood. No one mentioned the death of Wells, but my brother-­ in-­ law, finding himself, for a moment, apart with “Red,” quietly and simply expressed his sympathy and sorrow. ­ Sinclair Lewis flew into a biting rage. “People just love to be bearers of bad news.” He snarled at Hal (Harrison) Smith, who had telephoned or telegraphed his friendship and sympathy. He attacked me because I had canceled my radio program when I heard of Wells’s death a few minutes before I was scheduled to leave for it. “Dorothy’s just putting on an act. She wasn’t his mother. It’s all self-­ dramatization.” Fanny Butcher, longtime literary critic of the Chicago Tribune, was there, and Lloyd Lewis, the newspaperman and historical writer, with his wife. ­ Sinclair Lewis admired Lloyd and had collaborated with him on the play “Jayhawker,” which had not been a success. When I ran into Fanny some months later, she was still shocked at Lewis’s conduct that evening. Lewis bragged that he had heard the news just before he went to lecture and had never “been better in my life.” 280 / Sinclair Lewis Remembered My sister, defending Hal Smith, said, “He is one of your oldest friends. He didn’t want to bear bad news, but to offer you sympathy and comfort. And you know that what you say about Dorothy is not true. She loved Wells deeply, and he loved her. She was prostrated.” This reproof ­ Sinclair Lewis took in silence. But my sister was not shocked. She was sorry. She knew only too well that Lewis’s reaction to frustrations and griefs was to hit out at those who cared most for him, and often at those for whom he cared most. That was always the trouble: never knowing whether he really cared at all, for anybody or anything except his work. ...