"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis

Frank:

Hello and welcome to Novel Conversations, a podcast about the world's greatest stories. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and for each episode of Novel Conversations, I talk to two readers about one book. And together, we summarize the story for you. We introduce you to the characters, we tell you what happens to them, and we read from the book along the way. And I'm joined by our novel conversations readers, Katie Smith and Elizabeth Flood. This episode's conversation is about the novel. It Can't Happen here by Sinclair Lewis. So if you love hearing a good story, you're in the right place. Katie, Elizabeth, welcome.

Katie:

Thanks, Frank.

Elizabeth:

Thank you.

Frank:

Glad to have you both here. Before we get started, I want to give you a quick summary of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Published in 1935, It Can't Happen Here is Lewis's cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy. Set in the years after the Great War and the Great Depression, America was witnessing the rise of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Communism. There was a widespread fear that the country could be taken over by a foreign fascist dictatorship, or even worse, a domestic communist revolution. Such concerns gave rise to the alarming popularity of a variety of demagogues from both the left and the right. When one man prevails to become president and then dictator to save the nation from welfare, cheats, crime unions, communists, and a liberal press, Sinclair Lewis shows us it can happen here. Katie, Elizabeth, does that summary work for you?

Katie:

Yeah, sounds great.

Elizabeth:

Yeah, it's perfect.

Frank:

Let's not gild the lily.

Elizabeth:

It's the best summary I've ever heard.

Frank:

Well, I know it's the best I've ever written, but I wasn't sure if it was the best you'd ever heard. Well, Katie, let me ask you, is this the first time you read Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here?

Katie:

Yeah, it was my first reading.

Frank:

Are you familiar with some of Sinclair Lewis's other titles?

Katie:

I have read a couple of his other ones. I enjoyed this one so much though. Probably more than Main Street, which I think was the last one I read.

Frank:

I got to tell you, I really enjoyed this one myself. And just as an aside for our listeners, I want you all to know that Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize, and he won it for some of his great classic novels, as Katie mentioned, like Arrowsmith or Babbitt or Main Street or Elmer Gantry. But this was a new one for me as well. Elizabeth, had you read this one before?

Elizabeth:

No, I hadn't.

Frank:

Good read though.

Elizabeth:

Yes. Very, very interesting.

Frank:

I kept coming up with the word prescient. Sinclair Lewis understood what could happen, and some people might argue is in fact happening.

Katie:

Absolutely.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Katie:

I think also there are certain snippets in here that were very true for the time in 1935, but could still be as true today in 2022.

Frank:

Absolutely. Good point. Good point.

Katie:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

Because history repeats itself.

Frank:

It does.

Elizabeth:

I don't know if you two knew this, but I had read that Sinclair Lewis's wife was actually a reporter in Europe at this time.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

I believe she's one of the last Americans to interview Adolph Hitler before she had a flee Germany and come back to America.

Katie:

Wow.

Elizabeth:

Wow.

Frank:

So she certainly informed her husband Sinclair Lewis's knowledge of dictatorships and what was happening in Europe at this time. No question. Glad you brought that up, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:

Yeah, I'd be interested to learn more about her.

Frank:

As you guys know, we usually like to just start telling the story and we introduce characters as we come up to them in our chronological telling of the story. However, I think with this novel, I'd like to introduce some of our characters along with introducing the time of the novel this way as we then tell the story of the novel, we don't have to keep referring back to this as 1935 or to some of our characters. So Elizabeth, do you want to set the time for us a little bit?

Elizabeth:

Sure. This was set in Vermont in 1935. They were just coming out of the Depression. They had just finished up World War I, which they refer to as the War to End All Wars in the book.

Frank:

Or the Great War. I think sometimes they mention it's the Great War, right?

Elizabeth:

Yeah. They didn't quite know what was coming. But I think that it's quite interesting that this was written pre-World War II because Sinclair Lewis didn't know what was coming, but he did have some ideas of what was coming.

Frank:

Right. And by 1935, the world was witnessing the rise of Adolph.

Elizabeth:

Right, right.

Frank:

And we were witnessing the rise of Mussolini and the fascists in Italy.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Frank:

So Lewis saw some of this beginning and then of course extrapolated those facts into his novel.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. I'm guessing that concentration camps were pretty prevalent at this point, since he talks about them a lot.

Frank:

Well, actually, not just yet.

Elizabeth:

Not yet?

Frank:

Not just yet.

Elizabeth:

Oh wow. Okay.

Frank:

He had an understanding of what these kinds of governments would do to people that did not appreciate the new governance that was being brought to them. Katie, in my summary, I mentioned that there were concerns in this country after the depression, after fighting the Great War. Do you want to just cover a couple of those concerns that the Americans had at this time?

Katie:

Sure. I think a lot of it had to do with the rise of certain political powers. There was the fear that communism would come in. There was the fear that fascism would come in. Everyone was coming out of the depression. There were people who couldn't get a job. There were families that couldn't support themselves. I think the political atmosphere was very much foggy. They didn't know what would come next.

Frank:

And they were afraid of that fog. They were afraid of that uncertainty. They were concerned, as you said about the communists. The first communists organizations in this country started in 1922. So the communists have been here a little while.

Katie:

Right.

Frank:

The German bund, somewhat modeled after the Nazi socialist party in Germany was in existence here in this country, 20, 30,000 members of the German Bund in this country. We still hadn't solved our race problem. Some had fought in the war, and then they come home and they're back in second class citizenship. So there's a lot of issues in this country. Not only the economic, but the political, the social, and Sinclair Lewis seizes upon this time to tell us a story of a dictator. A man who feels he has to come to the aid of the country to save our country from these various factions, these various political upheavals. But the only way he can do that, become a dictator himself.

Katie:

Oh.

Frank:

A man becomes president fairly, but then because of the problems he believes he sees in the country, he takes draconian measures in order to clamp down on political parties, the liberal press, criminals in general, labor unions. But again, we'll get into that story, but that's the scene, that's the time and place where this novel occurs. It's a very scary time in our country. And as far as the place, Elizabeth, you mentioned Vermont.

Elizabeth:

This conservative, easily shocked, wholesome seeming area can still devolve into violence.

Frank:

I think that's right. He did choose a conservative part of the country. This was not a crazy, wild liberal part of the country. This is, as I said, the state New England. If these people can be swayed by a demagogue, if these people can become, shall we use the word populists, it could happen anywhere. Katie, why don't you introduce us to our hero? I think we can call him a hero in this novel. Our protagonist, Doremus Jessup.

Katie:

Well, we have Doremus Jessup. I think he's a little bit of an everyman. He's a newspaper editor in the middle of this sleepy town in Vermont. And he's a little bit of a gossip, which means that we hear him talking to everybody. He hears everyone's opinions and he really mulls them over. He's a self proclaimed bourgeois intellectual.

Frank:

Which just means he's a thinker.

Katie:

Right. And he's a liberal.

Frank:

He is a liberal. He also has a family. The family plays an important role in this story. Elizabeth, tell me a little bit about some of the members of his family, if you would.

Elizabeth:

So he has three children, Philip, Mary, and Cecilia, who's known as Sissy. His oldest son is a doctor, and I suppose the most successful of the three. Cecilia's still, I believe a teenager, maybe 18.

Frank:

Right. Senior year in high school, I think they said.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. So Philip and Mary are both married. Mary, we don't really get to hear about her until later on in the novel, but she ends up being quite the firecracker.

Frank:

She's married to a doctor.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Fowler Greenhill, I think his name is.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. And they have a child. And then Sissy, at the beginning of the novel she's carefree, flippant.

Frank:

18 year old.

Elizabeth:

Yeah, yeah. Who's running around just thinking about boys, mostly.

Frank:

And she's got two that she thinks a lot about. And we'll talk about them as we get there. And she also drives a nice little convertible.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

It's a little different for 1935, I would think. Katie, tell me about Doremus's wife, Emma.

Katie:

Well, we don't know much about her. She's quite quiet and conservative. She doesn't have a lot of opinions.

Frank:

She would be what I might call, if I may, a 1935 typical housewife.

Katie:

Absolutely.

Frank:

She's not too involved in what the Doremus is doing outside of the house. She keeps a nice house. She makes sure he's happy at home, but she doesn't get too involved in his life. Certainly not at the beginning of the novel.

Katie:

Right. She frets about everything on the same level, how clean the table is, and whether Doremus is safe outside.

Elizabeth:

And Doremus seems to have quite a bit of contempt for her.

Frank:

Do you want to use the word contempt? That sounds a little strong to me, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:

Mildly contempt.

Frank:

Okay.

Elizabeth:

I don't know, what's the word I'm looking for there?

Frank:

Maybe indifference.

Katie:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Frank:

Does indifference ... That's not strong enough for you?

Elizabeth:

To me, it just seems like he's constantly irritated by her. At least that's how I read it.

Frank:

Well, let me ask you this. Are you prejudice, perhaps, because you know that Doremus is having an affair.

Elizabeth:

That's part of it. Yeah.

Frank:

Let's mention who he's having an affair with. She is also an important part in this story. It's not entirely clear at the beginning that it's a physical affair, although we know by the end of the story there has been a physical affair.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Frank:

But Doremus has affections for, what was her name? Lorinda Pike.

Elizabeth:

Lorinda Pike.

Frank:

Right. And sometimes he calls her Linda. Sometimes it's Lorinda.

Elizabeth:

Sissy calls her Lindy.

Frank:

There you go. There you go. And she's a local woman. She owns and runs a bar in town. And she seems to be a very nice lady. And clearly Doremus has affection for her. It's unclear to me what Emma knows about that particular affection. Did anyone get a feeling?

Katie:

Well, she always has a little bit of reaction to Linda's presence and doesn't like her around, but can't verbalize it. But then she says, at a certain point when Doremus references Lorinda, Emma says, "I'm not worried about you having an affair at your age."

Frank:

She calls her husband Doremus a door mouse.

Katie:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

She doesn't think there's a whole lot going on over there.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

At least nothing that she has to be too concerned about.

Elizabeth:

She laughs at the thought of him being someone's lover.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

Perhaps even her own.

Elizabeth:

Well.

Katie:

Right.

Elizabeth:

They won't sleep in the same bed together.

Frank:

That's right. And sometimes he doesn't even sleep in the same room. He prefers to sleep up in his attic office, I think.

Elizabeth:

He's had a separate room from her throughout the marriage.

Katie:

For 14 years.

Elizabeth:

Which is his choice, not hers. He tosses and turns and talks in his sleep.

Frank:

That's right. He's a tosser and a turner.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Maybe. There are a couple other people in their orbit, in the Jessup orbit. Did you want to tell me about Buck Titus?

Katie:

Buck Titus is Doremus's best friend. He is ... What does he do? I don't remember.

Frank:

He's a footloose bachelor.

Katie:

Does he have a job?

Elizabeth:

That's a job title in 1935.

Frank:

He's got a beautiful lodge where the men like to hang out and play cards and smoke cigars, and a lodge that will become important to us a little bit later in our story as well. And then there's one other character we should mention, Julian Falck. He's one of the two boys that Sissy Jessup is having some fun with, but he becomes also very important in our story. Who is he? Who is Julian Falck?

Elizabeth:

The grandson of a reverend, I believe. His parents are dead, so he lived with his grandfather. The two boys that Sissy likes are Julian Falck and Malcolm Tasbrough. And Malcolm is more of a meat-head, and then Julian is more intellectual. And Sissy's father Doremus definitely prefers Julian Falck.

Frank:

And certainly by the time we're halfway through this novel, Sissy also prefers Julien.

Elizabeth:

Correct, yes. Yes.

Frank:

And Malcolm sort of disappears from our story.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Are the Jessup family. Those are, if we want to be as simple a term as, those are the good guys. Let's talk a little bit about some of the bad guys, some of the politicians, the people that are going to populate our political sphere. I guess we really need to start with Berzelius Buzz Windrip. Who wants to tell me about Berzelius Buzz Windrip?

Katie:

Buzz Windrip is a former senator who sees the state of America and decides that he could be president and put it in its rightful place.

Frank:

But he can't do it alone. He needs help from another arena, the religious arena. Elizabeth, tell me about Bishop Prang.

Elizabeth:

Well, he is a Protestant bishop and he gives, I believe it's a weekly address on the radio.

Frank:

He's one of the first radio evangelists in the country.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

He's got a huge audience that follows him every week. His radio sermons.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Frank:

And he decides to throw his for Berzelius Buzz Windrip.

Elizabeth:

Right.

Frank:

And that's what propels Windrip to the presidency.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Puts it over the top, this religious addition.

Elizabeth:

Exactly. Because once you have a religious leader telling you that a certain politician is the moral choice, that's going to really motivate religious people to believe, "Oh, this is the good and moral choice, because the bishop said so."

Katie:

Or even just make the decision for them.

Frank:

Perhaps we should say for our historians out there that are listening to us today, Bishop Prang is somewhat modeled on Father Coughlin, who was also one of the early radio evangelists of our time.

Elizabeth:

Oh, okay.

Frank:

And I guess I should say that Berzelius Buzz Windrip is modeled on Huey Long, the former governor of Louisiana who proclaimed every man a king, but no man wears a crown. He was one of the first populists to come to power in our country, in Louisiana. He might have been President of United States someday if he hadn't been assassinated on the steps of the capital, as a matter of fact.

Elizabeth:

Wow.

Katie:

When was he assassinated?

Producer Noah:

Producer Noah here, 1935.

Frank:

Okay. So right then.

Elizabeth:

Oh.

Katie:

So right around. Interesting.

Elizabeth:

Did Lewis assassinate him?

Producer Noah:

PR for the novel.

Frank:

So yeah, he's assassinated before he can become president. And there's a pretty darn good chance he would've been President of the United States. And that's where I think Lewis also took some of his inspiration.

Katie:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

Interesting.

Katie:

That makes sense.

Elizabeth:

Okay.

Frank:

So for our listeners out there, think of Huey Long when we talk about Buzz Windrip, and perhaps think about Father Coughlin when we mention Bishop Prang. Although Bishop Prang, after he throws his weight and his audience to Buzz Windrip, seems to disappear somewhat from our novel.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Katie:

Some of those things were lost on me when I was reading it just because I don't know those things that happened. It felt a little bit like reading Dante where you know everyone's important, you just don't know who they are.

Frank:

You don't know who they all are.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

And there are a lot of historical references. As a matter of fact, I did read, I was reading another critic who mentions that Sinclair Lewis takes a lot of the editors and newspapermen that he knew at this time and he puts their names into the concentration camps as a way of honoring the writers and editors and publishers that had suffered during this time with other [inaudible 00:16:49].

Elizabeth:

Oh.

Katie:

That's so interesting.

Frank:

Oh, you know what guys? I think with that introduction to our characters and our timeline and our time, let's take a break here. And when we come back, we'll get into our story and we'll start telling our story chronologically, and we'll find out what happens to Doremus Jessup, members of his family, as well as the erstwhile Berzelius Buzz Windrip. We'll be right back.

And we're back. I'm your host Frank Lavallo, and today I'm having a conversation about the novel, It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. All right, Katie and Elizabeth, before we took our break, we introduced the timeframe of our novel. We also introduced the place of our novel, and we talked about some of the main characters in our novel. What I want to do now, obviously is talk about our novel and give our listeners the story. So the story begins, as we said, there's a lot of dissent, a lot of concern, a lot of fear in our country. Buzz Windrip decides to run for president to try to cure the ills. He's nominated, interestingly enough, in Cleveland at the Cleveland Democratic Convention. He has a couple of well known contenders that are trying to take the nomination away from him. One in particular, Katie, our former president, FDR.

Katie:

Yeah, we have FDR. He was elected in 32, so he's in his first term here, running for his second term, and he's up against Windrip.

Frank:

As a matter of fact, Windrip has so taken over the Democratic party that FDR is not even running as a Democrat at this convention. He's formed his own new party, Elizabeth, the Jeffersonian party.

Elizabeth:

Right. So FDR knew that he could not run either as a Republican or a Democrat. So he felt it was necessary to form a third party. The Jeffersonians.

Frank:

Right. There was no way he could support Buzz Windrip.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Elizabeth, but regardless of who FDR was running with, he loses badly to Buzz Windrip. Buzz Windup becomes the next President of the United States. Elizabeth, do you want to tell me some of the things he does on his very first day?

Elizabeth:

Well, he announces, or the book says, he squawks, "My fellow citizens as the President of the United States of America, I want to inform you that the real New Deal has started right this minute, and we're all going to enjoy the manifold liberties to which our history entitles us and have a whale of a good time doing it." So his second was to take up residence in the White House, and he sat down in his stocking feet and told his Secretary of State, Lee Sarason that this was what he had been waiting for.

Frank:

And Katie, his third act on his very first day in office?

Katie:

His third act as role as Commander in Chief was to order that his minute men, which was his self-organized army ...

Elizabeth:

Who were all volunteers.

Frank:

A personal volunteer army that answered only really to Buzz Windrip.

Katie:

Yeah. That they should be issued rifles, bayonets, and automatic pistols and machine guns by the end of the day.

Frank:

And then we got one more act on his first day.

Katie:

His fourth act, demanding the instant passage of the bill embodying point 15 of his election platform, that he should have complete control of legislation and execution and the Supreme Court be rendered incapable of blocking anything that it might amuse him to do.

Elizabeth:

The Supreme Court said hell no.

Frank:

What did the Congress say?

Katie:

Hell no.

Frank:

Exactly. Within hours, I believe. Don't they meet in special session?

Elizabeth:

30 minutes.

Katie:

They sure do.

Frank:

By joint resolution with less than half an hour of debate, both Houses of Congress rejected that demand before 3:00 PM on January the 21st. Before six, the President had proclaimed that a state of martial law existed during the present crisis and arrested most of the Congress. And that was on his first day. He did not waste any time.

Katie:

And immediately riots ensue.

Frank:

On both sides. There's riots against what Windrip is doing, and there's riots in support of what Windrip is doing. And this begins the disintegration of our democracy.

Katie:

Absolutely.

Frank:

And this is what many people in our country today fear. The idea that a president could declare martial law or emergency law and then pretty much do whatever he wants to do, to whoever he wants to do it. And Lewis, again, that's part of his prescience. He sees how that can occur. And let's not only talk about America, what Lewis is writing about does occur in dozens of countries from 1935 up to the present. It does happen. It is happening and it will continue to happen.

Katie:

Right.

Frank:

Again, the prescience of Lewis. Obviously we set up our Jessup family as the heroes of our novel, our editor, our newspaper man, Doremus Jessup, is not going to take this lying down. He's not going to allow his country to devolve into this anarchy, into this martial law. What does he do?

Katie:

He writes something in the newspaper.

Frank:

He starts to write.

Katie:

He put it off. He waited. There was a last straw that he couldn't take it anymore when he saw people being arrested and put in jail. And I think it was when there was a murder in his town that he decided to stand up.

Elizabeth:

Oh yeah. Who was murdered?

Katie:

A Jewish man.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. That was something we forgot to mention was that throughout this, obviously at that time especially, there was a lot of antisemitism and Jewish people were the bad guys in Windrip's eyes. So he blamed a lot of what was going on in the time on Jewish bankers and Jewish people in general. And some of his points were keeping Jewish people tamped down, making sure black people couldn't get too rich or successful, making sure women stayed in the household and didn't work unless they were nurses or something like that. But interestingly enough, they did allow women into the military, which we'll talk about later.

Frank:

But not the minute men.

Elizabeth:

No.

Frank:

Because that was just for guys.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. Doremus wrote this article and he was really stressing about whether or not he should publish it. He was really stressing about it the whole day, the whole night. And I think his publisher at first refused to do it, but then finally caved in and he showed it to his wife. His wife was like, "I don't think you should publish this." He showed it to his mistress and she said, "You must publish it."

Frank:

Go for it.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. But she also was fully aware of the risk that he was taking.

Frank:

And it's the publication of this first article that brings him to the attention of the new regime, the new people in charge in his area. And actually we should speak about the people of his area has also changed. One of the things that Windrip does to consolidate his power. Elizabeth, tell me about what he does to the country.

Elizabeth:

He forms a new party. The full name is the American Corporate State and Patriotic Party.

Frank:

And they call them the Corpos for short.

Elizabeth:

The Corpos.

Frank:

That's his new political party.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. And the entire country is just that party now, according to him.

Frank:

Well, why did he need a new party?

Katie:

Because he eliminated all the other ones.

Frank:

No more Democrats, no more Republicans, no more libertarians.

Elizabeth:

Jeffersonians.

Katie:

No independents.

Frank:

No more Jeffersonians.

Katie:

And he redistricts the United States.

Frank:

He redistricts the United States. That's what I wanted to get to. Elizabeth, he divides the country into eight regions.

Elizabeth:

It's eight regions, and the occupations are divided into six classes.

Frank:

Right. Not only does he break up the country and form his own political subdivisions, but he also tries to regulate industries as well.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

And he settles on six basic industries that he'll support.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. Agriculture, industry, commerce, transportation and communication. Banking and insurance and investment and miscellaneous.

Frank:

That's right. Miscellaneous.

Katie:

Nice catchall.

Frank:

But these aren't the only changes he's making in our country. He's eliminated political party, and formed his own political party. He's divided the country into new political subdivisions. But there's two other things that go on in the country at this time. And I think these are the things that eventually will drive Doremus onto the radical side and he'll want to take actual action more than just writing about it. I believe it was the shutting down of the borders that was one of the main causes to drive Doremus. But Doremus also finds out about one other thing.

Elizabeth:

So because they were coming out of the depression, there were a lot of people who were unemployed. So Buzz made these work camps for un-

Frank:

That's right. That's the term that Windrip uses, they're workers camps.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. For the unemployed people. So all the unemployed people go in there and then private companies can rent these workers, only pay them a dollar a day. And most of that money goes towards their food and board, which is not included in their camp apparently.

Frank:

These worker camps become what labor camps had been for a while. You can only rent a home from the company. You can only shop in the company store. The company gives you, instead of giving you cash, the company gives you script that's only good at the company store. So that's what happens. And that's what happens in these worker camps. They can only buy at the worker's shop. They can only use worker money. They're not getting dollars to go out into the world to spend. They're being kept in these camps. It's nice to call them workers camps, but I think we all know what they're going to become. They're going to become detention camps.

Elizabeth:

What happens too is that since it only costs a dollar a day to hire these workers, some of the bosses of the companies fire the people that they currently have employed because they're more expensive to pay. So then those people don't have a job. So then they go to the worker camps.

Frank:

They end up in the worker's camps. Exactly.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Exactly. But Katie, not all is lost. The entire country doesn't come under the swoon of Windrip. There is a resistance. And we get a surprising character, I don't know if we've even mentioned him yet.

Katie:

Walt Trowbridge.

Frank:

Who is Walt Trowbridge?

Katie:

He was Buzz Windrip's opponent in the presidential race.

Frank:

He ran as a Republican. He ran against Windrip, he loses badly. He stays in the country for a little while.

Katie:

He does.

Frank:

But then he does just as Doremus, he sees the country divided.

Katie:

Well, Trowbridge is under surveillance, is that the right word?

Frank:

Right, right. He's being watched.

Katie:

He's being monitored.

Frank:

Right. He's being watched. And he's also watching, he sees Windrip divide the country literally and physically. He sees the Supreme Court quashed. He sees congressmen arrested. He sees workers camps slash detention camps sprouting up across the country. So even though he is being surveilled and being watched, what does Trowbridge do?

Katie:

Well, he lives out his life just writing letters to friends about radishes I think, until one day he escapes to Canada.

Frank:

He escapes to Canada. And when he goes to Canada, does he continue writing about radishes, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth:

He starts working for the resistance.

Frank:

Right. Trowbridge is the resistance. He's now in Canada. He had been supported by a lot of people, let's be honest, even though he didn't win. Even though Windrip crushed him in the election, he did garner a lot of votes. So there are people out there that supported Trowbridge and supported his policies and were against what Windrip would do. So now Trowbridge starts to agitate from Canada. He starts to gather people in Canada that will help him somehow resist what's going on in America. And of course, our hero, Doremus Jessup gets involved in this resistance. Not only him but pretty much his entire family.

Elizabeth:

He had promised to the people that each family would get $5,000 once he was elected.

Katie:

Each person.

Elizabeth:

Each person would.

Producer Noah:

That was a word-for-word steal from Huey Long.

Katie:

Oh, was it?

Producer Noah:

Yeah.

Katie:

Wow.

Frank:

Was the money. Yeah.

Producer Noah:

Right. The $5,000 a month.

Frank:

Every man a king, no one wears the crown.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. So that's part of the reason that he got elected.

Frank:

Right. They could put up with a lot if I had $5,000 in my pocket.

Katie:

Right.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

And I think one of you did the math. What would $5,000 be like today?

Elizabeth:

It'd be about a hundred thousand, right?

Katie:

Mm-hmm (positive).

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

That'd be a nice piece of change in your pocket.

Katie:

Times 20.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

And I think that might buy some votes.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Katie:

I think so. They hear what they want to hear.

Frank:

What can Doremus do to resist? He writes.

Katie:

He write about it in the paper.

Frank:

What paper would print these political tracks now?

Elizabeth:

So they have a secret underground printing press and they're just dispersing it wherever they can.

Frank:

He and Buck Titus have actually stolen a very old press from the basement of the paper where Jessup used to work. They're now printing resistance newsletters. Very, very carefully. Very, very secretively. And then getting them distributed throughout, at least the local area for now. And then with further printings, hoping to push the information further out into the country.

Elizabeth:

And his daughters are a big part of that, as well as Sissy's boyfriend Julian.

Frank:

That's right. So there's this whole crowd. Emma, probably the wife is really the only one that's sitting this out.

Elizabeth:

Oh, and Philip.

Frank:

Oh, and his son Philip.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

Right, exactly. His son Philip is really ...

Katie:

He's pro Windrip.

Frank:

Right. He's a supporter of Windrip.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

So there's, there's not much connection between Philip and his parents at the moment. But Doremus does enlist his friends, he does enlist his family and they start putting out this underground newspaper, if you will. But it doesn't really last long because eventually people figure out who's writing this stuff in this area. There's only one well known writer/editor. And so Doremus is in fact arrested. It's an interesting story. Who arrests him?

Katie:

His old handyman.

Frank:

His old handyman. An old handyman that Doremus had given a lot of breaks to. He never thought he was a very good handyman, but he didn't want to fire him because he felt a little bad for him.

Katie:

He daily thought about firing him, but never had.

Frank:

And it turns out this handyman, this bumpkin physical guy is just the perfect person to become a member of the Minute Men, and then rise up in the ranks of the Minute Men. And eventually he becomes the man that torments and arrests Doremus Jessup.

Katie:

Yep.

Frank:

He's punished a bit. He's threatened a lot. His family is threatened a lot. Eventually he's released for a time, he's then finally rearrested because he continues his resistance activities. But Elizabeth, the second time he's arrested, he's not just threatened and somewhat beaten and he's certainly not sent to a worker's camp. Sinclair Lewis has him sent directly to a ...

Elizabeth:

Concentration camp.

Frank:

A concentration camp where he is going to be tortured and interrogated and they're going to try to find out everyone else that's working with him. And this is a pretty brutal time for Doremus.

Elizabeth:

Yes. He goes into great detail about his long, I think it's a six month ...

Frank:

Right, about six months.

Elizabeth:

... stint in the prison camp.

Frank:

What's some of the worst things that happened to him there?

Katie:

He's beaten.

Frank:

With a steel rod.

Katie:

The steel rod.

Frank:

His back is shredded. The flesh of his back is shredded with constant beatings by a rod. And certainly we should make it clear it's not only Doremus that's being punished and interrogated ...

Katie:

Oh, everybody.

Frank:

... and tortured.

Katie:

The leader of this camp doesn't like the beating. So these prisoners are not as badly tortured as other concentration camps.

Frank:

Until they replace the leader of the concentration camp and then the punishment gets a lot worse. But Katie, for Doremus, being punished, being tortured, being interrogated is actually not the worst thing that happens to him during his time in this concentration camp. Do you want to tell me about the worst moments for him?

Katie:

Right. When he was first arrested, his son-in-law, Greenhill comes into his defense and is immediately taken out back and shot.

Frank:

And so now dos has to live with the fact that he probably caused the death of his son-in-law. How does his daughter react to the death of her husband?

Katie:

Her whole life is shaken up. She immediately hardens to this fact, and she has one goal. Take out the guys who are responsible for his death.

Frank:

She goes catatonic for a little while. She withdraws within herself almost in a fetal position for weeks.

Katie:

Right.

Frank:

Eventually she comes out and her heart, as you said, is hardened. She's not interested in forgiveness, she's not interested in accommodation. She just wants revenge and she's going to spend the rest of her time planning revenge on the man and men who killed her husband.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. Swan was the main guy that she's after. So Mary, as I had mentioned before, that they allowed the women to be involved in the war. Well, they were planning for a war, so they allowed the women to be in the training for the coming war that they had planned.

Frank:

Against Mexico, I think was going to be the first war, right?

Katie:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

So she learned how to fly a plane and how to drop bombs.

Frank:

She learned about explosives and about planes. A very dangerous combination, I would think.

Katie:

Yeah. She was able to steal three grenades and once she had learned how to fly the plane, she went on a solo flight on a day that she knew Commissioner Swan was headed to see the President. And she knew that the only way to take Commissioner Swan down was from the sky. And so she flew her plane over his dropped three grenades, all of them missed his plane. So then she just dove her plane into his and crashed it

Frank:

A suicide mission for Mary. But she does in fact get her revenge on the killer of her husband. She takes him out along with herself. And this only hardens Doremus. This only hardens him in resistance. He's now going to get revenge for the death of his daughter. And it's going to continue. We have several other events that occurred during this time. Obviously, what do dictators do when they take control and they are fearful of a press, a liberal press and liberals?

Katie:

They shut it down.

Frank:

They shut it down. They shut down the press. They shut down schools.

Katie:

Well, they take over the press.

Frank:

Yes. More accurate. You're right. More accurate.

Elizabeth:

And take over the school.

Frank:

They become the press, they become the schools.

Katie:

There's still freedom of speech of course, there's still freedom of education under their rule.

Frank:

Under their speech and under their education. But they do ban books and they burn books

Katie:

They burn books.

Frank:

They burn books. And we get some titles of books that are burned. I think one of you mentioned that Alice in Wonderland goes into the fire and we get the mentions of a couple other books that they're burning. That's what fascists do. That's what dictators do. They fear knowledge. They don't want the people to know the past or the present and certainly not what's coming. So they burn, they burn books, they burn knowledge.

Elizabeth:

Even some books that don't really seem threatening to them, they just burn for the sake of burning the books. For example, they burned Doremus's most prized collection of all Dickens novels.

Frank:

A 34-volume, extra illustrated collection of the Dickens works.

Elizabeth:

Yeah. Meanwhile, as many dictators and supreme leaders are, Buzz is starting to get paranoid and he realizes that he is lonely because he doesn't trust anybody.

Frank:

The only people that he hangs out with are ...

Elizabeth:

Sarason.

Frank:

Right, Lee Sarason. We haven't mentioned Lee Sarason before, but Lee Sarason is basically his number two man. He's the man that helped put Windrip into power. He's the man that helps keep Windrip in power.

Elizabeth:

He came up with the Minute Men.

Frank:

He's got his hands on most of the levers of power at this time. I think I can only guess at the rest of the story. Windrip has himself eventually declared President for life, emperor for life. They take over Mexico, they take over Canada, and he starts his new North American empire. How much did I get right?

Katie:

None of it.

Frank:

None of it. Oh, Katie, tell me what actually happens to our erstwhile emperor Windrip.

Katie:

Well, before he can get everything motivated to attack Mexico, his number two, Lee Sarason, takes over.

Frank:

He's deposed.

Katie:

He is.

Frank:

Isn't that what tends to happen to tyrants?

Katie:

It sure is.

Frank:

There's always going to be another tyrant, another strong man coming along that wants to take it over.

Katie:

Exactly. Which is, we didn't mention this, but at the beginning, a lot of the communists, the people with communist leans were in favor of Windrip because they thought, "Well, if this guy takes over, then it leaves room for us to come in after him."

Elizabeth:

Oh.

Frank:

A lot of the communists agitators were Jewish, they were East Europeans, and they brought that political tradition with them when they came over to our country and they've been trying to instill that in our country. As a matter of fact, while Doremus is in the concentration camp, he runs into communists, Jewish communists and non-Jewish communists and we get some very interesting debates between Doremus and these communists as to what they think about what's going on in the country at this time. But right, as we said, eventually Windrip is deposed and we get the new dictator, Lee Sarason. All right, so Elizabeth, let me try this. Lee Sarason has himself named Emperor for Life. He attacks Mexico and Canada and creates his own empire.

Elizabeth:

No, he only lasts a month or two.

Frank:

Oh man, I got it wrong again.

Elizabeth:

Because general Haik, who has direct command over the Minute Men, he had helped Lee to depose Windrip, but then he very quickly deposes Lee and in fact kills him and he takes over.

Frank:

That's right. I guess we should say that Lee Sarason, when he depose Windrip, he doesn't kill him.

Katie:

Right.

Elizabeth:

No.

Katie:

He exiles him, sends him to Europe, so not so bad. And Windrip tells us that he's stolen $4 or $5 million, so he's all right. When Sarason is deposed, general Haik doesn't take any chances. He just eliminates Sarason.

He sure does.

Elizabeth:

Liquidates, as they say in the book.

Frank:

As they say in the book. I wrote down what John Booth says after he assassinates President Lincoln and he jumps from the booth to the stage. Do you remember what John Booth says at that moment?

Elizabeth:

I'm not that old. I wasn't there.

Frank:

Nice.

Elizabeth:

I wasn't there.

Frank:

Nice

Sic semper tyrannis, thus always to tyrants. And isn't that what we get, right? We get that with Windrip. He's a tyrant. He gets deposed. Sarason's a tyrant, he gets deposed, thus always to tyrants.

Katie:

Even Shad, he was a tyrant and he gets deposed.

Frank:

And he gets deposed. This is what happens.

Elizabeth:

Yeah.

Frank:

Men get power, other men get power. They want the other guy's power. And it's a constant battle for power, for control.

Elizabeth:

Very prevalent in the ancient Rome, wasn't it?

Frank:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And as a matter of fact, we get an illusion at the time when Sarason goes into depose Windrip, he stands over Windrip's bed with a knife in his hand with the arm raised. And I think we're supposed to think of Brutus and Julius Caesar.

Elizabeth:

Right.

Frank:

I was hoping Windrip would say, "And you too, Lee," but he didn't. Maybe he avoided that cliche a bit.

Katie:

I was wondering if that was a dream or if that was real.

Frank:

No, I think it was real because then when Haik goes into depose Sarason, there's a mention of there's no arm, there's no blade in the hand.

Katie:

It's a single shot.

Frank:

They just shoot him. A sic semper tyrannis. All right. So guys, where we are in our story now is Windrip has been been deposed, and he's in Europe. Sarason has been deposed, and he's six feet underground. Doremus is in a concentration camp being punished and tortured and interrogated. How do we get out of this story? How do we end this story?

Katie:

Well, one of the guards whispers to Doremus, "Ms.Pike is helping you escape."

Frank:

Lorinda Pike, his old mistress. Well, she's not that old, but his mistress has arranged for him to escape, and she's bribed a couple guards and there's a plan for him to get out. Elizabeth, what did you think? And then tell me what happens.

Elizabeth:

He does get out pretty seamlessly. Although, interestingly enough, I think he at first doesn't believe that he can get out.

Katie:

Yeah, it's pretty quick. The guard just whispers something, says there's a hole on the fence.

Frank:

And a truck waiting for you to go.

Katie:

Yeah.

Elizabeth:

And Doremus remembers that in his sentence, they had said that if he escapes, there's a death penalty for him and he will be shot.

Frank:

Escaping is a death sentence.

Elizabeth:

Yeah, but he decides to take the chance anyway. Why not?

Frank:

And in fact, he does escape.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Frank:

I was concerned it wasn't going to happen. I was afraid there was going to be a guy at the end of the road with a gun, but he escapes. And where does he go? What does he do?

Elizabeth:

Canada.

Frank:

He flees to Canada, and that's where he's going to take up his life. He's going to become part of the resistance there and help America. And that's about where our story ends. We don't have a resolution. We don't know what's happened in the country. The country's not saved. We don't get a new president riding in on a white horse to save this country. We are now in a mess. We've got our third dictator in three years, and this country needs to figure it out. And they're going to try. There's a resistance that's growing out in the Midwest, Western area. They're trying to claw back some of the territory. They're trying to establish a new country, if you will, that will take on America. But there's no sunshine at the end of this story. There's no gift wrapped conclusion. Sinclair Lewis leaves us with a lot of questions and a lot of open ended, "We don't knows."

Elizabeth:

Well, and that's probably because he didn't know we're going to shake out.

Frank:

Exactly. Great point. Exactly. He doesn't know. He's writing this in the middle of the time that some of these things are threatening to occur. Let's be clear. Obviously it doesn't occur, but things are boiling. Sinclair Lewis sees that. He writes it. But Elizabeth, you're exactly right. He can't finish that writing. All right, with that somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion, let's take a break here. And when we come back, we'll wrap up our story and then I'd like you guys to share some of your favorite moments or some favorite lines that you might have.

Katie:

Sure.

Frank:

And I know I've got a couple of literary illusions I want to throw at you. We'll be right back.

And we're back. You're listening to Novel Conversations. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo, and today I'm having a conversation about the novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. All right, Katie, Elizabeth, I said before we took our break that now I wanted to come back, make sure we finished our story, and then I'd like you to share some particularly favorite moments or favorite lines or characters that you might have that we haven't had a chance to get to. I believe we've pretty much finished our story. Doremus is in Canada working for the resistance. I found it funny that he's taken up a sport, golfing a little bit. And that leads to one of my literary illusions, and we'll get to that in a second. But Katie, do you have anything you want to share with us? Any particular moment or line?

Katie:

I've got a little passage here. I'll read it out. Quote, "Their feeble pamphlets, their smeerly printed newspaper seemed futile against the enormous blare of Corpo propaganda. It seemed worse than futile. It seemed insane to risk martyrdom for the world where fascist persecuted communists, communists persecuted social Democrats, social Democrats, persecuted everybody who would stand for it. And where Aryans who looked like Jews, persecuted Jews who looked like Aryans and Jews persecuted their debtors. Where every statesmen and clergymen praised peace and brightly asserted that the only way to get peace was to get ready for war." I think that shows us just how shaken up everybody is. But I think more than that, it really reminds me of a Bob Dylan song where everyone's just getting at everyone.

Frank:

Everyone's getting at everyone. And I think if this novel had been written 10 years later, we could have used a phrase Orwellian. But obviously we won't get George Orwell for probably another 12 years, I guess, or so. Elizabeth, do you have a moment or a character that you want to share?

Elizabeth:

I do. I have a passage here that I think maybe summarizes perhaps the thesis of the book. "Thus had things gone in Germany. Exactly thus in Soviet Russia, in Italy and Hungary and Poland, Spain and Cuba and Japan and China. Not very different had it been under the blessings of liberty and fraternity in the French Revolution. All dictators followed the same routine of torture as if they had all read the same manual of sadistic etiquette."

Frank:

And isn't that why Lewis titled this book, what he titled it? Everyone says, "Oh, that's, that's Europe, that's Germany. It can't happen here. It couldn't happen here. This is America."

Elizabeth:

We're free.

Frank:

Right. We're democratic, we're welcoming. It can't happen here. One of my favorite parts of this novel and how Sinclair Lewis writes is he uses a lot of literary illusions. Part of it is I think all authors have a bit of an ego, and I think they want their readers to know how much they know and how much they read, so they put a lot of literary illusions into their works. And I'm a fan of that because I like to know what I know, and I like to try to find those illusions, figure them out. I know I don't get them all, but I think I get some. And that makes the reading more enjoyable for me on a different level, maybe an ego level.

I'd like to know that I know what he knows and I read what he read and so forth and so on. I found two in here, but I'll give you one now when he's talking about the Minute Men are storming the capital and they're collecting congressmen to take away to either hang or to torture or to somehow reeducate. And there's a line here that the Sinclair Lewis gives us that as this is all going on, there's a wild women from the mountains. In another existence she had knitted at the guillotine and had, through this encounter, followed all the actions. I think if you've read Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, we all remember Madame Defarge.

Katie:

Yes.

Frank:

And what does Madame Defarge do is she sits by the guillotine knitting a shawl and into the shawl, she knits names and symbols of the people that are being executed.

And I think that's Lewis. He throws that in there. This woman is knitting while the Minute Men are going on their rampage, I think to call to our attention the French Revolution and some of the horrors and extreme actions that took place during that revolution in order to drive that home as to what's going on with this current revolution. This book is very progressive in its treatment of many of the women. Even though Buzz Windrip wants the women to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, these women are not by any means. They're part of the resistance. They're moving paper, they're moving men. Lorinda Pike helps Doremus escape. So they're taking very active roles in this resistance. We mentioned Mary, Doremus's daughter. She learns how to fly a plane so she can kill a guy. Right? They're these women don't need emancipated by anyone. These women are taking their shots.

Elizabeth:

They are.

Katie:

And they're active.

Frank:

They are. They are. And that's Lewis. That's Sinclair Lewis writing that. I'm going to leave you with one last literary illusion that had some particular resonance for me. While he's in Canada, Doremus takes up the game of golf and he decides he's going to learn to play golf. He doesn't really enjoy it, but he's giving it a shot. And here's a sentence that struck me. "He did pretend to play golf, but he could not see any particular point in stopping a good walk to wallop small little balls." I think some of our listeners will know that. That's a reference to Mark Twain's comment about golf. Mark Twain called golf a good walk spoiled.

As a matter of fact, there's several golf books out there today that have that particular sentiment in their title, A Good Walk Spoiled. And I think that's what Sinclair Lewis is telling us about Doremus. Doremus thought golf could be a good walk spoiled. So again, a little, I think you used the word wink, a little wink to us and to Mark Twain. And with that, I think we'll end our conversation today about the novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo. You've been listening to Novel Conversations. I want to thank our Novel Conversations readers, Elizabeth Flood and Katie Smith. Katie Elizabeth. Thank you very much.

Katie:

Thank you, Frank.

Elizabeth:

Thank you so much.

Frank:

Thanks for listening to Novel Conversations. If you're enjoying the show, please give us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find us on Instagram or Twitter @novelconversations. Follow us to stay up to date on upcoming episodes and in anything else we've got in the works. I want to give special thanks to our readers today, Elizabeth Flood and Katie Smith. Our sound designer and producer is Noah Foutz and Grace Sienna Longfellow is our audio engineer. Our executive producers are Michael Deloya and David Allen Moss. I'm Frank Lavallo, and thank you for listening. I hope you soon find yourself in a novel conversation all your own.

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