Dorothy Thompson, wife of Sinclair Lewis was expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 for her journalism criticizing the regime. One year later, Lewis published “It Can’t Happen Here” as a speculative work about a fascist dictator running for US President and then becoming a dictator. This book largely follows the newspaper editor Doremus Jessup as he reports on and experiences the effects of the campaign and new regime.
Lewis’s most famous works–“Babbitt” and “Main Street”–focus on restlessness and middle class ambition in the face of the mediocrity and pressure to socially conform. In “Arrowsmith” he described the slowing of scientific progress caused by bureaucracy and meritocracy. Those works generally proceed slowly and often in a circular manner as characters are caught in traps working against social pressures. The writing is witty and fully of humorous irony.
“It Can’t Happen Here” is quite different. The plot moves much more quickly and maintains story-lines for many characters as well as plot points following the new government. The writing is much more plain and urgent. A lot of time was clearly spent in adapting the politics to the US (the political aspects largely follow Germany) in particular the persistent strain of anti-intellectualism and desire to return to “traditional values.” But largely this offers much less analysis on the American psychology than Lewis’s most famous works.
This book is similar to Feuchtwanger’s “The Oppermann’s” (written in Germany in 1933) which follows the rise of the Nazi’s from the viewpoint of a Jewish merchant family. The questions posed are little more interesting with “when should we start to worry” and “how much of these politics can be tolerated.”
It’s an interesting novel and well written but not a standout among Lewis’s novels. And there’s the whole question of whether the resurgence in popularity this novel saw in 2016-2017 was justified or a bit alarmist…
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