He was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, sold millions of books, and dictated the cultural conversation of his era. He was also slapped in the face at a private club, banned in U.S. cities, and died lonely in Rome of alcoholism. Sinclair Lewis was the ultimate insider who remained the ultimate outcast.

This episode unpacks the chaotic, brilliant life of the man who stripped the romantic varnish off American identity, inventing archetypes for materialism and hypocrisy that still describe us today. It matters because his warnings, ignored for decades, came roaring back to the bestseller lists nearly 70 years after his death.

• How a lonely, pop-eyed kid from Sauk Centre survived by selling story plots to Jack London under the pen name Tom Graham
• The runaway success of Main Street and Babbitt, a satire s ...