Babbitt

This is the one. Babbitt follows George F. Babbitt, a real-estate man in the fictional Midwestern city of Zenith, a cheerful, loud, self-congratulatory man who is a perfect product of his culture and entirely unaware of it.

Why Start Here

Lewis invented a word with this novel. “Babbittry” entered the language as shorthand for smug, conformist boosterism, and reading the book you understand immediately why. Babbitt is hilarious and painful in equal measure, a man who briefly glimpses that his life might be hollow, then retreats right back into it.

It’s more accessible than Main Street (which is longer and more diffuse) and more human than Elmer Gantry (which is pure takedown). Babbitt has genuine sympathy for its protagonist even as it mocks him relentlessly.

What to Expect

A brisk, satirical portrait of 1920s American business culture. Lewis’s eye for detail is extraordinary, the gadgets Babbitt loves, the clubs he belongs to, the slogans he repeats. It’s dated in some ways, but the type it describes never really went away.