From AudioFile
Occasionally author, novel and narrator mesh really well; so it is with this reading of Lewis's satirical, yet affectionate, portrait of small-town America in the 1920's. The modern parallel is Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. Protagonist Carol Kennicott fails to transform the dull ordinariness she finds in Gopher Prairie, but her attempt is grand and grandly told by Barbara Caruso. Caruso's wry voice provides just the right characterizations for the frustrated Kennicott; her patient, but misunderstanding, husband; and the uncertain townspeople. Listeners will sense in Caruso's reading what is conveyed in Lewis's writing--raised eyebrows, knowing looks, a mix of condescension and tolerance. T.H. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Main Street FROM THE PUBLISHER
The first of his major novels of the 1920s, Sinclair Lewis's Main Street satirizes the manners of the American Middle West. Here is the story of Carol Kennicott, who, to be accepted, must adapt to the ways of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. This groundbreaking novel attacks conformism, commercialism, moneygrubbing, and the decline in what Lewis saw as the American ideals of freedom and respect for individuality.