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Free Air

by Sinclair Lewis, Robert E. Fleming (Introduction)

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 206 ratings · 39 reviews

Fame was just around the corner when Sinclair Lewis published Free Air in 1919, a year before Main Street. The latter novel zeroed in on the town of Gopher Prairie; the former stopped there briefly and then took the reader by automobile in search of America. Free Air heads toward a West that was brimming with possibilities for suddenly mobile Americans at the end of a worl...more

Paperback, 370 pages

Published April 1st 1993 by Bison Books (first published 1919)

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Sep 02, 2012 Shellys♥ Journal rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, classic, fiction

Written in 1919, this is the story of Claire Boltwood - NY socialite on a road trip with her wealthy businessman father from Minnesota to Seattle. They get a true taste of the wide open spaces as they motor their car through the small towns of the plains and mountains of the west. Perhaps their biggest realization is the beauty of Americans that wouldn't fit neatly in their social circles. Along the way, Claire picks up an admirer in small-town mechanic Milt Dagwood. While he adores her, can she...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Light but lovely - it's not On the Road, but it's getting there, as a journey of geographic and personal discovery through the West in 1916, full of little details of food, hotels, flivvers and cupboards with pierced-tin doors, and all the immigrants and plutes and fourflushers. There's something quite irritating in the non-travel bits of the story - boy improving himself for the sake of a society girl's affections and she of course needs to improve herself too but they're both such swell kids.....more

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Feb 28, 2013 Jeremy Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was great. I love old pulp, especially when it's a wild journey, and this road trip book was a fun and exciting read. I went through a bunch of public domain kindle books just browsing, and I figured I would read a page or two of each to see what caught my attention. This book caught me on the first page.

I'ts very light like others have mentioned, but it does get you thinking about society and lifestyles and how things haven't really changed all that much in almost 100 years. But it's...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Kathy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

I think it was Raymond Chandler who said that when he was writing a story and the plot began to drag, he would have a man come through the door with a gun. Sinclair Lewis did something very similar at the end of each segment of his 1917 serial Free Air by inserting an abrupt meeting between one of his two protagonists and the person he or she least wants to see. The first 150 pages or so of the novel version, published two years later, are so clever and charming that it's a real letdown when the...more I think it was Raymond Chandler who said that when he was writing a story and the plot began to drag, he would have a man come through the door with a gun. Sinclair Lewis did something very similar at the end of each segment of his 1917 serial Free Air by inserting an abrupt meeting between one of his two protagonists and the person he or she least wants to see. The first 150 pages or so of the novel version, published two years later, are so clever and charming that it's a real letdown when these seams begin to show.

Lewis was a master of place-setting, and his descriptions of the back roads between Chicago and Seattle are often first-rate. It's interesting to read a portrait of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota written three years before he used that fictionalized Sauk City as the setting for his best-seller Main Street. In the early sections, Free Air's Claire Boltwood, whose opinions about provincial towns and townspeople have been shaped by a privileged Brooklyn girlhood, seems like a first draft of the later book's Carol Kennicott. Of the two, Claire is the physically and mentally stronger: she's capable of wrestling a heavy touring car along mountain roads for days at a time, and she's far quicker on the uptake than the dense Carol about the humanity and decency of most people, whether or not they've been formally educated. Hero Milt Daggett resembles other later Lewis creations, most strongly the self-made success Sam Dodsworth. He's an appealing fellow, alternately self-conscious and assertive and always yearning to improve himself.

The novel is far from perfect. Whether deliberately or not, Lewis gives both his main characters the same irritating on-and-off tendency to speak in telegraphese. ("Had nice trip; that's all I wanted. Never did intend to go clear to Seattle, anyway. Go on to Butte, then back home.") Secondary characters drop in and out of the narrative with no explanation, and the fate of a non-human who had added real color to the early chapters seems contrived, as if inserted in haste to meet a deadline. Free Air should have been edited down by a third between its magazine and book appearances. If the second half had lived up to the promise of the first, I would award it four stars. However, it's neither truly good enough for that rating nor ordinary enough to deserve a straight three, so my final judgment is three and a quarter.(less)

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May 29, 2011 Jenny J rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, fiction, read-in-2011, kindle

I confess: I picked this up after it was mentioned on the tv show "Boardwalk Empire." Published in 1919, this was a light-hearted, road-trip, battle-between-the-classes romance, between wealthy Claire Boltwood ("used to gracious leisure, attractive uselessness, nut-center chocolates, and a certain wonder as to why she was alive) who, on a road trip from New York to Seattle, meets Milt Daggett, the working-class owner of a small-town garage. Cultures clash, drama ensues (bears! hijackers! seedy h...more

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Jul 29, 2011 E.W. Lewis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read a good many of Sinclair Lewis' works. Seeing this title suddenly available at my local bookstore I could not resist the impulse to yet again dive into one of my favorite authors. I began the read a bit timidly due to its being written in the early career (and as a serial) of the author.

The book read easily. The language was not cumbersome and flowed one paragraph to the next. The quick humor of S.Lewis was not lost and in some ways even more prevalent than in later works. His use of...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic-lit

If you have never heard of Sinclair Lewis before, you can think of him as F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s counterpart. He also published during the ‘roaring twenties,’ but wrote of many different classes of people. It seems he especially liked yoking together characters from high society and low society, to see how they get along. This yoking together is exactly what he does in Free Air (April 1922), the seventh of twenty-six novels he has written.

Similar to what we envision of the 1920′s, Lewis’ prose co...more If you have never heard of Sinclair Lewis before, you can think of him as F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s counterpart. He also published during the ‘roaring twenties,’ but wrote of many different classes of people. It seems he especially liked yoking together characters from high society and low society, to see how they get along. This yoking together is exactly what he does in Free Air (April 1922), the seventh of twenty-six novels he has written.

Similar to what we envision of the 1920′s, Lewis’ prose comes across as high and fast. The high part revealing the lofty and romantic language he uses throughout the novel (taken from the upper class); the fast part is revealed in long run-on sentences that the characters speak and seems to work particularly well in this time period.

Before I continue with my review of Free Air, I want to note that in 1930 Lewis won the Nobel Prize for literature and as a prize recipient, was required to write a short autobiography on his career so far. I strongly recommend anyone considering being an author (or currently in the struggles of becoming one) take a peak (you will also notice his ‘high and fast’ language here). My favorite quote from this autobiography comes at the very end where he reveals his ever-present satire: “I am settled down to what I hope to be the beginning of a novelist’s career. I hope the awkward apprenticeship with all its errors is nearly done.” Only after writing 14 novels and winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, does he finally allow himself to truely ‘begin’ his career as a novelist.

Free Air can be summed up as a book about the great American road trip. Claire Boltwood and takes her father Mr. Boltwood on a cross country car trip from New York city all the way to Seattle, WA. Although Claire describes their financial situation to be mediocre, I found out that they really are a part of the elite New York society that was akin to British royalty in the 1920′s. The road trip is full of humor and character building crisis’ for Claire (the modern reader will find the description of the roads very insightful due to their practical non-existence; all back country road, mud and the occasional small town). And it is in one of the first small city stops that they make do they run into Milt Daggett, the owner of the local car shop. At first sight, Daggett falls for Claire and what will only sound as creepy in this summary, decides then and there to follow her and her father all the way to Seattle. Stalker? Knight in shining armor? That is what I will leave for you to find out if you read Free Air.

This book was popular enough on its publication to have been made into a silent film in 1922, starring Tom Douglas as Milt Daggett and Marjorie Seaman as Claire Boltwood.(less)

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Jul 28, 2011 Shirley Freeman added it · review of another edition

I was half way through reading Freedom, the new book by Jonathan Franzen, when I thought "I need to put this down for awhile - just can't stand the characters and their dumb decisions." I wanted to read something nicer. Started searching amazon for romances/cheap kindle downloads. This was 95 cents. Sinclair Lewis wrote Free Air in 1919 just before he became famous with his book Main Street. It is definitely dated, especially in the use of slang for various minority people (uses Jap etc.) but it...more

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Jun 06, 2012 J rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Seattleites, historians, road trippers

It's no Main Street or Babbit but this work just before Lewis achieved international acclaim and a Nobel prize is light and fun. It has aged pretty well for a light adventure/romance of its day, especially if you like the era the book was written and set in (both 1910s). The plot is quite obvious, but at least the characters are well developed and nobody is written as pure angel or villain. I probably got the most enjoyment from the setting of a 1910s western road trip and then life in Seattle o...more

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Feb 07, 2010 Gail rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2010

Funny, light hearted story of Claire Boltwood's automobile trip with her father from Minnesota to Seattle (long before road trips were fashionable). The book was written in 1919, and involves class struggle but not in Lewis' typical cynical way. This is more of a fun, frivolous travel/love story.

Claire meets a garage owner named Mitt Daggert who gives up all to follow her to Seattle. He ends up saving her from bears, flat tires, bad men (rapists but they wouldn't really say that back then) and f...more

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Apr 02, 2013 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you are usually a fan of Sinclair Lewis, I need to be up front. This is not one of his best. If you are new to the author, you may want to start with Elmer Gantry, Babbitt, or Main Street. However, if you want to give one of his earlier, more minor works a try, this one isn't awful. I know that isn't exactly a glowing recommendation, but compared to a lot of trash the world has to offer (I'm looking at you, Stephenie Meyer), this really is worth a go. And here's why.

I've gotten into arguments...more If you are usually a fan of Sinclair Lewis, I need to be up front. This is not one of his best. If you are new to the author, you may want to start with Elmer Gantry, Babbitt, or Main Street. However, if you want to give one of his earlier, more minor works a try, this one isn't awful. I know that isn't exactly a glowing recommendation, but compared to a lot of trash the world has to offer (I'm looking at you, Stephenie Meyer), this really is worth a go. And here's why.

I've gotten into arguments with other readers that Lewis tends to be a bit heavy-handed. He wrote in the same period as other American greats like Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, though. If you've read any of those, you know that early 20th Century American literature is often plagued with heavy-handedness and "hit you over the head" morality. Let's face it--it was all the rage back then. And it got much worse a couple of decades later (see everything written by John Steinbeck). So take that aspect of it with a grain of salt, okay?

Also keep in mind that this novel was originally written as a serial, so if it seems periodically that you are being steered over a cliff to hang there, there is a reason for that. The original format was to keep the readers coming back for the next installment. So the seams show a little. It is really not all that distracting, and makes for a fairly brisk pace and an interesting read.

Now with the negatives out of the way, I can inflate your hopes with a bit of faint praise. Though the characterizations of the main protagonist Claire Boltwood and her love interest Milt Dagget just barely rise from the two-dimensional, the two do have their moments. They seem to grow and mature as the novel progresses, which endears them to the reader.

Claire is a bit of a feminist before such portrayals of women were commonplace. She decides to break free of her privileged, high-society life and travel cross-country by car. Doing so in 1919 when the novel was written was an endeavor not much less daring than heading over the prairie in a covered wagon, but she does it anyway. She would have come off as more of a brave heroine had she not taken her father with her, but the reader grows used to that and even somewhat fond of the father-daughter relationship.

Dagget seems a bit more hackneyed in the beginning of the novel. He even veers into creepy territory as he stalks Claire cross-country, but I'm willing to admit that also may be my modern day cynicism affecting my interpretation. Many love stories involve borderline stalking behavior, so I tried to overlook that. He also redeems himself as the story progresses, proving to the reader he really does care about the heroine. And given that many of the characters are stuffy rich people, Milt as the relatable Everyman works somehow. It may be a bit obvious, but it still works.

Overall, this is a charming read. It is a female "On the Road" thirty years before Jack Kerouac. It may not have the most developed characters, but the story is engaging and fast-paced. The story may change speeds once the journey cross-country ends in Seattle, but there is new drama to be explored there.

Though I wouldn't recommend it for those new to Sinclair Lewis, it is definitely worth checking out for anyone who is more familiar with his other, later works. Lewis is a little green here, but still shows the reader a good time.(less)

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Oct 25, 2011 T.P. Williams rated it 2 of 5 stars

If you can get over the condescending, cynical tone of the narrator, book stands our for a couple of reasons - it describes a cross-country car trip at the dawn of the motor age, and again has a female character as the main character. I thought the romance with the man from the middle west was contrived, and the way he kept popping up in the narrative was fairly absurd. Dated, but interesting for being dated, giving a picture of America during and after WWI. Other characters were poorly develope...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Marzie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics-modern

Written in 1919 this story is one of the first in the tradition of road trip books. Jaunty with the verbal slapstick comedy and slang it is a great little piece of the era. Lewis has as his hero the working man Milt who is in love, maybe, with the upper class Claire. They meet on on a cross country journey on the New American Road, he in his inexpensive flivver car and she and her father in their deluxe import. The art of driving and how travelers spend the nights, meals and other accommodations...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Titi rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a really nice book for me to read on the long car ride.
This book was charming, sweet, sometimes absolutely insufferable, but in the end, marvelous. Like I said before, this is a PERFECT summer roadtrip book. I recommend it to anyone who's a) traveling and/or b) a fan of authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner.

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Apr 20, 2011 Leona rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've read several Sinclair Lewis' books in the past: Babbitt, Main Street, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry and have loved every one of them. This book was written prior to those and the language seemed very archaic even for the early part of the 20th century. I don't recall having such a problem with his later books.

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Aug 17, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

I rather liked this. SInce it is written in 1919, it gives a refreshing break from modern language and plunges you into a whole different vernacular.
The rich are rich and the poor are poor and love is love so.....maybe it's not so different from the century we're in now.

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Jun 08, 2012 Wanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, e-books

Summary: Sinclair Lewis published Free Air in 1919.
Free Air heads toward a West that was brimming with possibilities for suddenly mobile Americans at the end of a world war. The vehicle a Gomez-Dep roadster, takes Claire Boltwood and her father from Minnesota to Seattle, exposing them all to the perils of early motoring. On the road, the upper-crust Boltwoods are at once more insignificant and more noble. The greatest distance to be overcome is the social one between Claire and a young mechanic...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Doug Diegert rated it 3 of 5 stars

I got this from the 75% off table at B&N. It's pretty trashy. Kind of a romance novel for men. There are interesting hints about the state of driving, clothing, society, etc. in 1915. The plot is contrived. It reads like the script of an old melodrama movie.

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Apr 15, 2013 Jodi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Just what I needed while traveling with Emily in Japan. It was a free kindle book and now I'm hooked on Sinclair Lewis. Enjoyed the mixing of the high society Claire and honest everyday man Milt. So full of adventure of the 1920's America!!!

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Dec 25, 2012 Maggie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was book my brother, Tom recommended that I was able to download on iTouch, so took a while to read, since I don't read on that much. It was a fun book set a long time ago. It was about some people driving across the country, starting in MN & how their very different lives interchanged. I was amazed by some of the phrases and things pointed out that I thought was more modern. It was a fun read.

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Mar 07, 2013 T. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a charming story and an interesting look at a particular time in American history. As one who has made several trips across the US, I was intrigued by the descriptions of pre-WWI road travel.

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Sep 19, 2012 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed this cautionary tale about the need to be/find your authentic self. Along the road from small town Minnesota to Seattle, the dangers of pretending to be something that one isn't strikes both characters - in very different ways. At least, that's what I gained from it...

Well told - although some of the cultural/time references were a bit tough to read - it was the time that it was...

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Nov 13, 2012 Jim Pozenel rated it 3 of 5 stars

It seemed a bit slow moving throughout the trip but once they reached Seattle I liked the story much more. I enjoy reading stories about this time period more than any other.

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Feb 08, 2012 Regina Bennett rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of personal discovery set in a time when people were acceptive of strangers and could pick up hitchhikers. and, the surprise ending was comforting.

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Apr 19, 2012 Dave rated it 3 of 5 stars

Fun, lighthearted book, with some great humor inserted here and there. I listened to it. I think anyone who likes Jane Austin books would like this one.

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Mar 19, 2013 Sherri Anderson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Even though this book was written in 1919 it was a wonderful read. The writing style of this book was unique and the story though classic love story was enjoyable.

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Aug 06, 2012 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd never heard of Sinclair Lewis until I found this book and I'm glad I did. It was adorable and so jolly!

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Feb 13, 2012 Laurel rated it 3 of 5 stars

A very fun, interesting book set when automobiles were just becoming popular. Sinclair Lewis is a good author. I hadn't read anything by him since I read The Jungle in high school.

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Oct 02, 2012 Deborah added it

Pretty good. It kept my interest. I like the concept. I kept visualizing it as a movie.

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Sep 27, 2012 Jenny Kitchens rated it 4 of 5 stars

It reminds me a lot of Jane Austin, very good

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