Free Air by Sinclair Lewis

When we look for what we’re about to read next, there are probably a few things going on in our minds. I try not to plan too far ahead, because I find that putting books on an immediate to-read list rather kills my excitement – I love leaving the decision to the spur of the moment, to what appeals most to grab. And the other day I really wanted something mid-century American. I think it came after reading May Sinclair’s journals and wanting to recapture something of that, but in a more urban setting. I turned to Sinclair Lewis.

Now, first of all I took Babbitt off the shelf. I read a few paragraphs and… didn’t feel inspired. It wasn’t quite the tone I was after. The font was too small (for such things do matter, sometimes). I decided to take down the only other Sinclair Lewis book I own – 1919’s Free Air. Not mid-century, unless the definition is stretched very loosely, but perhaps it would suit a mood.

And, reader, it certainly did.

Free Air is a road trip novel, I suppose, from the early days of such things existing. Claire Boltwood is an upper-class young woman who decides to motor from New York to Seattle, accompanied by her father. Even today that would be quite the undertaking, but in the late 1910s with a car that struggled to get up hills and routinely broke down, it was an astonishing adventure. Not far into the journey she encounters Milt Daggett – a mechanic who owns a garage, and who saves the day in the first of her many roadside calamities. Smitten, he decides to follow her across the country – accompanied not by a father, but by a cat called Vere de Vere.

Early on in the trip, Claire realises that he is following them – and politely but firmly suggests that they can have no further acquaintance. He accepts, but continues to follow with an eye on her safety. There are definitely some dynamics that are a bit problematic in Free Air – his kind determination could certainly be read as stalking – but there are other elements of the novel that prevent it feeling uncomfortable. One is that Claire is far wealthier and more socially confident than Milt. The other is that she certainly isn’t a damsel in distress. While she does often need the help of a mechanic or a second pair of hands to get out of a danger, you also feel that she can handle herself well and isn’t easily deterred. (Her father, on the other hand, is a rather passive, useless man. As such, he is perhaps the character I felt the greatest affinity with.)

The plot of Free Air could easily be a romantic adventure novel. Essentially, it is a road trip constantly interrupted by mishaps – from mechanical issues to death threats. What stops it being like a dimestore thriller are two things – one is the interesting and engaging characters, and the other is the writing. As I understand it, Free Air isn’t quite like Lewis’s better known books – but there is still an elegant, beautiful turn of phrase even to such adventurey topics as driving speed:

If Milt had been driving at the rate at which he usually made his skipjack career over the roads about Schoenstrom, he would by now have been through Dakota, into Montana. But he was deliberately holding down the speed. When he had been tempted by a smooth stretch to go too breathlessly, he halted, teased Vere de Vere, climbed out and, sitting on a hilltop, his hands about his knees, drenched his soul with the vision of amber distances.

‘Drench his soul with the vision of amber distances’ is just the right side of overwritten, in my mind – the sweet spot where it is just beautiful. And the book is somehow filled with writing in that tone, while still feeling pacey. It has all the good bits of an adventure novel with none of the things that would put me off them. And it’s funny! Here’s a bit I enjoyed, just as relatable today as it was more than a century ago:

So for two hours Claire and her father experienced that most distressing of motor experiences – waiting, while the afternoon that would have been so good for driving went by them. Every fifteen minutes they came in from sitting on a dry-goods box in front of the garage, and never did the repair appear to be any farther along. The boy seemed to be giving all his time to getting the wrong wrench, and scolding the older man for having hidden the right one.

I don’t know anything about cars today, but the world of 1919 cars was a total eye-opener. It does mean that some sentences don’t make much sense to me – ‘So the cylinders filled with surplus oil, the spark-plugs were fouled, and the engine had the power of a sewing-machine’ – but I enjoyed being thrown into this world. And grateful to drive in an era of mobile phones, where assistance is more or less locatable.

So, what stops this generous, good-hearted young man and impetuous, good-humoured young woman from instantly setting off on a new life together? One word: class. While class is the bedrock of the British novel of more or less any era, it is perhaps less at the forefront of American literature. Wealth is often a theme, of course, but I’ve seen less about class – and how people from different spheres of life could be considered incompatible, even if they were to enter the same financial bracket.

Will I hate him when I see him with nice people? Can I introduce him to the Gilsons? Oh, I was mad; so wrought up by that idiotic chase with Dlorus, and sure I was a romantic heroine and – And I’m simply an indecisive girl in a realistic muddle!

So Claire thinks to herself in the latter section of Free Air, where they have reached their destination and have to decide whether they should be friends – or more, or less. And it’s not just one-sided. Milt is equally unsure that he can reach up to her echelon of society, though determined to try. This section of the novel is more grounded, and I found the discussions of class and compatibility really good – we have grown to love both characters by then, and I felt very invested in their decision in a way that I didn’t when they were first introduced.

It is odd to have such a realistic conundrum in a novel which is suffused with unreality, but Free Air is continually a novel where expectations of genre are challenged and discarded. I really enjoyed and appreciated it, and shall return to Babbitt with more eager enthusiasm at a future date.