Vincent Sheean (1899–1975)

Dorothy and Red by Vincent Sheean

On July 9, 1927, a young newspaper correspondent in Berlin, newly divorced, was introduced to famed novelist Sinclair Lewis, himself recently divorced. She invited him to the birthday party she was giving herself that evening. He came, and before the evening was out, he had asked her to marry him.

At the time, Lewis was 42, author of four celebrated novels, a restless and provocative man. To friends and acquaintances, he was known as Red, thanks to the color of his hair, and perhaps also to his fiery complexion, which developed from youthful acne that "had grown steadily more acute and eventually marked his face like a battlefield." He was ugly, just physically unattractive; tall with long legs, a hatchet face, bad teeth, and, of course, that complexion. Nevertheless, he was, says the author, "wondrous good company, the most inventive and salacious of wits, a true refreshment in his irreverance for the accepted persons and ideas…"

Dorothy Thompson, turning 33 on that day, represented the Philadelphia Public Ledger and the New York Evening Post in Berlin. She was a highly regarded journalist, and would shortly gain notice for an interview with Adolf Hitler. Not long after it was published, the German government tossed her out; the interview story had not been well received.

Red courted Dorothy relentlessly. She succumbed; they married. They made a honeymoon tour of the English countryside by caravan—a kind of gypsy wagon towed (very slowly) by Red's open touring car. Then they went their separate ways. Dorothy pursued her journalistic career and soon was an advisor to diplomats and government leaders. She was in Europe, she was in Washington, but seldom was she with her husband. Red, for his part, couldn't ever settle anywhere. He didn't like sharing the limelight, even with his wife.

The author, Vincent Sheean, was a friend of both Dorothy and of Red, knowing them individually and as a couple. He lived with them from time to time, at the farm they owned in Vermont, a house they owned in New York. He connected with them in Europe from time to time. So this isn't simply a research project, though Sheean did a lot of that. He scoured the Thompson archive at Syracuse Univerity and the Lewis papers at Yale. The book includes extensive exerpts from the letters they exchanged, and a highlight, to me, was an article about Lewis that Thompson had published in the Atlantic Monthly after his death, included as an appendix.

Despite the friendship, [Dorothy and Red] is not hagiography. It is not a full biography of either Thompson or Lewis, but a memoir of their life together. An enjoyable and worthwhile read.… (mehr)

The story of the love affair and marriage of Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Thompson, brilliant correspondent for the Curtis Publishing Company in Europe. Told through letters, diaries, and a friend's eyewitness account. A wonderful look at the private life of one of my favorite flawed authors. It's amazing to me the complexities of Lewis' persona. One of the most influential American writers of his time, he was also one of the most self-centered men alive, unable to truly give of himself to either of his two sons, or either of his wives. Dorothy Thompson became the most influential journalist of her generation, helping to prepare America for the neccessity of taking on Hitler. Indeed, she interviewed the dictator and was evicted from Germany for her unflattering portrait of Hitler. Lewis could not stand being eclipsed by his brilliant wife. Written by a mutual friend of the couple, Dorothy comes off much more sympathetically than Red.… (mehr)

“…Sheean was one of the great independent foreign correspondents of the 20th century. This was written when he was a relatively young man in the 1930s. It is a story of the news as he saw it – and felt it. Sheean reported events from his own perspective. He is the centre of the story even when he is not talking about himself. He portrayed himself as a kind of everyman against which the news reverberated…”(reviewed by John Hamilton in target="_top">FiveBooks).



Full interview is available here: http://fivebooks.com/interviews/john-m-hamilton-on-american-foreign-reporting… (mehr)