Arrowsmith has been inspirational for several generations of med students. Martin Arrowsmith agonizes over his career and life decisions never sure if he’s making the correct descisions. While the book details Arrowsmith's pursuit of the noble ideals of medical research for the benefit of mankind and of selfless devotion to the care of patients, Lewis throws many less noble temptations and self deceptions in Arrowsmith’s path. The attractions of financial security, recognition, even wealth and power distract Arrowsmith from his original plan to follow in the footsteps of his first mentor, Max Gottlieb, a brilliant but abrasive bacteriologist. A powerful novel that asks more questions than it answers. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

A Midwestern physician is forced to give up his profession due to the ignorance, corruption, and greed of society.

The Silence Of Your Name revolves around the suicide of Marshall's charismatic and idealistic young husband, Tim Buxton, while they were in Ghana with Operation Crossroads Africa - a progenitor of the Peace Corps. Marshall weaves in her husband's hidden family history, one tied to Boston's wealthy social scene and the deaths of notorious Black Sun publisher Harry Crosby and Tim's aunt Josephine Rotch Bigelow. By allowing readers to experience these distinct periods of time in great detail, Marshall illuminates the toxic effects of denial across classes and generations. As Marshall moves on with her life, now a novelist and young widow, she must navigate her way in the '70s publishing world with the guidance of her friend Philip Roth, while still processing the grief of losing her husband. Decades later, Marshall finds herself in the footprints of her past, journeying to Ghana and reuniting with a royal Queen-Mother and the steadfast community that offered her its support decades earlier. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Megan Marshall writes, she "is relentless in her quest for understanding and release from grief and guilt [...] but wisdom comes incrementally and her readers partake eagerly at each stage until we, too, have learned that grief may be transformed into love - and brilliant, soothing prose."

Previously published in hardcover: New York: Free Press, 2012.

Fanny Howe's Manimal Woe maps the intersection between history and family as few books have. Through poetry, prose, and primary sources, Howe invites us on a journey with the spirit of her father, Civil Rights lawyer and professor Mark DeWolfe Howe, who died suddenly in 1967. The past, both personal and historical, is utterly present, yet just out of reach. From her ancestors' dark legacy as slave traders, to her father's work during the Civil Rights era, to her own interracial marriage and family, Fanny Howe delves deep into the heart of the mysterious and the mystical, and emerges with the questions that so rarely find their way to us.

Carol Milford dreams of living in a small, rural town. But Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, isn't the paradise she'd imagined. First published in 1920, this unabridged edition of the Sinclair Lewis novel is an American classic, considered by many to be his most noteworthy and lasting work. As a work of social satire, this complex and compelling look at small-town America in the early 20th century has earned its place among the classics.

This satirical novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of It Can’t Happen Here examines medicine in the modern world through the eyes of an idealistic man. The assistant of a small-town midwestern doctor, young Martin Arrowsmith is fascinated with the contents of Gray’s Anatomy. Eager to pursue an adventurous career in medicine and science, he eventually sets off for medical school, where he hopes to dedicate himself to research. But as Martin progresses through life, he encounters qualities in humans more troublesome than any of the specimens he examines under a microscope. Happiness almost eludes him until his mentor offers him a post at a prestigious institute—which soon sends Martin to a plague ravaged Caribbean island. There he must show what he is truly made of . . . A perennial favorite of medical students to this day, Arrowsmith won author Sinclair Lewis the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, which he declined. “Beyond doubt the best of Mr. Lewis’s novels . . . Absorbing and illuminating.” —The Spectator

In The Age of Waiting, a personal memoir enriched by the history of Buddhism and a re-telling of foundational Buddhist tales, Douglas J. Penick confronts not only his own mortality, but also that of the planet. Penick's eloquent, impassioned investigation transports the reader to distant worlds, while at the same time linking our contemporary reality, with its medical, economic, and ecological emergencies, to an inner landscape which may prove more constant, durable, and transformative than we realize.

Martin Arrowsmith, the titular protagonist, grows up in a small Midwestern town where he wants to become a doctor. At medical school he meets an abrasive but brilliant professor, Gottlieb, who becomes his mentor. As Arrowsmith completes his training he begins a career practicing medicine. But, echoing Lewis’s Main Street, small-town life becomes too insular and restricting; his interest in research and not people makes him unpopular, and he decides to work in a research laboratory instead. From there Arrowsmith begins a career that hits all of the ethical quandaries that scientists and those in the medical profession encounter: everything from the ethical problem of research protocol strictness versus saving lives, to doing research for the betterment of mankind versus for turning a profit, to the politics of institutions, to the social problems of wealth and poverty. Arrowsmith struggles with these dilemmas because, like all of us, he isn’t perfect. Despite his interest in helping humanity, he has little interest in people—aside from his serial womanizing—and this makes the path of his career an even harder one to walk. He’s surrounded on all sides by icons of nobility, icons of pride, and icons of rapaciousness, each one distracting him from his calling. Though the book isn’t strictly a satire, few escape Lewis’s biting pen. He skewers everyone indiscriminately: small-town rubes, big-city blowhards, aspiring politicians, doctors of both the noble and greedy variety, hapless ivory-towered researchers, holier-than-thou neighbors, tedious gilded-age socialites, and even lazy and backwards islanders. In some ways, Arrowsmith rivals Main Street in its often-bleak view of human nature—though unlike Main Street, the good to humanity that science offers is an ultimate light at the end of the tunnel. The novel’s publication in 1925 made it one of the first serious “science” novels, exploring all aspects of the life and career of a modern scientist. Lewis was aided in the novel’s preparation by Paul de Kruif, a microbiologist and writer, whose medically-accurate contributions greatly enhance the text’s realist flavor. In 1926 Arrowsmith was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, but Lewis famously declined it. In his refusal letter, he claimed a disinterest in prizes of any kind; but the New York Times reported that those close to him say he was still angered over the Pulitzer’s last-minute snatching of the 1921 prize from Main Street in favor of giving it to The Age of Innocence. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

A Study Guide for Sinclair Lewis' "Arrowsmith," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.