Sinclair Lewis Remembered

79. Louis Adamic

79 / Louis Adamic Louis Adamic (1899–1951), author, critic, and journalist, immigrated to the United States from Blato, Austria (now Slovenia), when he was fourteen years old. He learned English while working in the Ameri­ can West, became a naturalized citizen in 1918, and entered the US Army during the First World War. He first met Lewis in 1931 on the occasion he described in his autobiography. Source: Louis Adamic, My America, 1928–1938 (New York: Harper, 1938), ­ 97–98. Ben Stolberg, a close friend of his, brought ­ Sinclair Lewis—“Red,” as everybody called him—to the first Literary Rotary evening after his return from Sweden. The date was 1 April 1931. I think it was only our second party, and the group happened to be small that evening—about a dozen. We were all sitting about the vast round table in the corner, and had given our orders, when neat, round little Ben and tall, reedy, gangling Red entered. Red had had cocktails somewhere else, and his eyes seemed to stick out of the narrow red face like a beetle’s. He was forty-­ six, and his red hair was graying above the large ears. His hands were long, slender, beautiful; the hands of an artist . His manner was intensely self-­ conscious, uncomfortable. Ben introduced him around the table. Red knew Harry Hansen, Lewis Gannett ,23 Henry Hazlitt,24 and Walter White25 and had heard of some of the others . His eyes stabbed into Hansen and Calverton.26 I scarcely knew most of my fellow rotarians, and was embarrassed when, as I was introduced to him, Red exclaimed, “Christ, Louis, you wrote a grand book!— Dynamite [1931]—just read it—jeez, a grand book!” He kept this up for half a minute or longer, holding my hand. I said, “Thank you,” and saw the others smile at my embarrassment. Red sat next to Ben, across the table from me. He ordered a wiener-­ schnitzel, which he hardly touched. He drank a seidel of beer. The meal lasted about half an hour and everybody was uncomfortable. Red talked only to Ben and Lewis Gannett, and was almost antagonistic to all the rest, except me. There was very little conversation at the table, no joking or kid- Part 11. Stockholm / 217 ding, no telling of funny stories. Most of the men tried—vainly—to ignore Red. They did not dislike him, but were self-­ conscious before Ultimate Success in Literature in person. Red kept looking at me; and when our eyes met, he winked. To Ben, who told me later, he mumbled, “I don’t like this bunch. Louis is the only proletarian here. All the rest of you are highbrows.” He tried to talk to me, but it was next to impossible across the wide table. Scheffel Hall was a large, dinful place, with a small German orchestra playing a piece every five or ten minutes. Embarrassed at being singled out by Lewis like this, I said, “Why don’t you eat. Your schnitzel will be cold.” Red’s face went into a grimace; he shook his head. “Say, Louis,” he raised his voice when the orchestra stopped, “what do you say we go to Detroit and Chicago , you and I. We’ll tour the industrial Middle West.” “What for?” I asked. “A trip,” said Red. “I asked Ben to come with me, but he’s a highbrow— doesn’t want to come. What do you say?” I said, “It’s hard to talk here. Let’s wait till we get out.” He noddedand,foldingandunfoldinghislongarmsandclaspingandunclasping his long hands, he continued to mumble to Ben about not liking this bunch, to stare and wink at me, and to look the picture of self-­ conscious dis­ comfort. Red’s gaze suddenly fixed itself on Calverton, who had lately written an article , “­ Sinclair Lewis—Babbitt,” for the Literary Review, published in Paris.27 He looked at him for several minutes, then said sharply, “So I am Babbitt, am I?” Calverton tried to laugh it off, unsuccessfully. He said something I could not hear. Red’s eyes burned holes into him. Thereupon Red turned to Harry Hansen, who was still on the World. “And you, Harry, what do you mean by printing in your ‘Book Marks’—and on the day I return from Sweden, as if to greet me with it—that piece of gossip as to why I left Harcourt, Brace and went over to Doubleday, Doran?”28 He was referring to a...