Free Air

There really isn't a lot of substance to this book - it's mostly fluff. (There's some social commentary in the later parts of the book, when they're in Seattle, but I try to ignore it.) But it's grade-A, high-quality fluff we're talking about here. Claire Boltwood's transformation from a Brooklyn snob to a real woman is highly believable, and Milt Daggett is one of the sweetest, most wholesome men ever created. Set against the well-painted backdrop of the American West, the story shifts from amusing to heartwarming to bittersweet and back again flawlessly.

Just a good, simple love-story, unique and well-written. I would recommend this book to anyone just looking for a good read.


Early, less profound Sinclair Lewis   April 24, 1998
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

One of my favorite books. I was lucky to get a copy (original edition) from the New York Public Library. Have read all his well-known books, but might like this best. His usual themes of Americana, social climbing, etc. But this is a "road" book and a very innocent love story - wonderful book by one of the best American writers. I'm surprised it's in print since it's such a minor title of his.


Free Air Review   August 10, 1998
2 out of 6 found this review helpful

I really enjoyed this book immensely and agree with the previous reviewer. It gives a descriptive account of the trials and tribulations of traveling westward in a car during the early 1900's.

Reads as a social/class commentary, a Zane Gray western, with some romance added.

Corny in some ways, however, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to other Sinclair Lewis fans.


unpaved roads, flat tires and chasing that dream   April 22, 2005
T. Patrick Killough (Black Mountain, NC United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Sinclair Lewis's FRESH AIR, published in 1919, is sheer, chuckling delight. It offers no great insights into psyches or interpersonal relations. Read it rather as a straightforward magazine serial pot boiler romance of frontier boy and car mechanic (Milt Daggett) pursuing a sentimental girl (Claire Boltwood) worth an impressive $5,000 around 1916. The girl, a high living Brooklynite, is driving her ailing workaholic father in a heavy Gomez-Dep roadster long day after weary day across northern plains and mountains towards a vacation with cousins in Seattle. She wonders whether she can ultimately avoid marrying Jeff Saxton, a notably older beau back in sophisticated New York.

Milt complicates things by falling in love with Claire after pulling her car out of a Minnesota mud hole created by a German hick to extort money from stranded motorists. Milt almost instantly decides to drive in his modest Teal "tin beetle" or "bug" with or near Claire and her father all the way to Seattle. And so it goes, with Claire wondering if she can (or should) civilize the manly Milt up to the level of suave and prosperous Jeff or whether that is too, too patronizing. Should she, alternatively, simply sweep off to Alaska with Milt -- heeding the call of the wild? Were Jane and Tarzan in the back of Sinclair Lewis's mind? For Edgar Rice Burroughs had created them only seven years earlier in 1912. No, the story takes another twist. Read the book and discover what this novel is said to be "prelude and curtain raiser" to.

FRESH AIR can also be read just for its sweaty heft as a part of midwestern and western America not long before the nation declared war on the Kaiser. On the drive through Minnesota, North Dakota, etc. to Washington state, roads are rarely paved. Gravel is luxury. Dust is daily. Mud is just around the bend. Tires are thin and frequently burst or are punctured. Steep slopes demand drivers with braking and gear shifting skills. And don't forget low spots covered by running water.

In every town where the Boltwoods overnight, they routinely drive their Gomez-Dep (a make apparently invented by Sinclair Lewis) into a sure-to-be-there full service garage for the night. These and other cross country garages often display a sign "Free Air," which must have been a reassuring come-on in the early days of cross-continental motoring.

The author, just one year before his first masterpiece, MAIN STREET, convincingly presents his personally experienced North American driving world from an expert mechanic's point of view: an automobile-crazed country with its starters, carburetors, rumble seats, dubiously effective head lamps, oil leaks, hitchhikers, fleabag hotels, country stores, a haunted house and country people who speak German and at first seem gruff but then are seen by sophisticated Easterner Claire Boltwood to have hearts of gold. As does her new suitor, Milt Daggett. It is an all-American world where even auto mechanics are romantic and knightly.

Boys and girls should read FRESH AIR a year or so before they tackle TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERRY FINN. One leads to the others.

-OOO-


A Good Read   April 19, 2010
Bernard J. Ryan (Melbourne, Australia)
I read a 1993 reprint paperback that is more value for money than the edition being reviewed here.
No typos, in fact, it seemed to be a reprint of the original text.
This is one of the very first "road" novels, preceding Kerouac and many followers by quite a few decades.
Obviously a minor work, but very entertaining as the other reviewers have confirmed.
Good to see that the pre-Main Street books can still be read.