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The Innocents

Sinclair Lewis

138 ratings
The Innocents | Sinclair Lewis

The Innocents

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“Mr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby were almost old. They called each other 'Father' and 'Mother.' But frequently they were guilty of holding hands, or of cuddling together in corners, and Father was a person of stubborn youthfulness.” It is only by subterfuge that Seth is able every year to obtain his two week's vacation from the shoe store, and they are off to the farm-house of Uncle Joe Tubbs on Cape Cod. But this year the vacation turns into a full blown scheme to open a country tea room somewhere on Cape Cod, and their life suddenly begins to change.
et gray.

It was a lonely countryside; the nearest signs of human life were a church gauntly silhouetted on the hill above Grimsby Center, two miles away, and a life-saving station, squat and sand-colored, slapped down in a hollow of[41] the cliffs. But near the Applebys’ door ran the State road, black and oily and smooth, on which, even at the beginning of the summer season, passed a procession of motors from Boston and Brockton, Newport and New York, all of them unquestionably filled with people who would surely discover that they were famished for tea and preserves and tremendous quantities of sandwiches, as soon as Father and Mother hung out the sign, “The T Room.”

They would open in a day or two, now, when Mother had finished the livid chintz window-curtains. The service-room was already crammed with chairs and tables till it resembled a furniture-store. A maid was established, a Cape Verde Portygee girl from Mashpee. All day long Father had been copying the menu upon the florid cards which he had bought from a bankrupt Jersey City printer—thick gilt-edged cards embossed with forget-me-nots in colors which hadn’t quite registered.

From their upper rooms, in which Mother had arranged the furniture to make the new home resemble their New York flat, the Applebys came happily down-stairs for the sunset. They were still excited at having country and sea at their door; still felt that all life would[42] be one perpetual vacation. Every day now they would have the wild peace of the Cape, for two weeks of which, each year, they had had to work fifty weeks. Think of stepping out to a view of the sea instead of a view of Brambach’s laundry! They were, in fact, as glad to get into the open as the city-seeking youngster is to get away from it.

On the

Deese 02/19/2023
Very Satisfying
You may ask yourself, as I did, how can a story about two old people who call themselves Mother and Father be anything but boring and depressing? Well like me you would be wrong. This book is funny, sad, heart-warming and full of surprises. Also thought-provoking on different levels,
Jazzy 03/01/2020
This was quite funny in places.
bup 02/01/2019
I wish Sinclair Lewis had written The Grapes of Wrath. The Joads would have found work with a guy who owned a carnival or something, who was passing through California's orchard country just at the right time. Who doesn't like a cheerful ending?
Ward 06/16/2018
What a nice little story of two lovers. Reminds me of my wife and me.
Scott 09/11/2013
Sinclair Lewis is prescient in this book, correctly describing a tea shop with mismatched furniture and dishes like so many modern coffeeshops today. Plus he used the term "hobohemian" to describe a group of artiste poseurs a/k/a hipsters of the early 20th century. Lewis' writing consistently impres

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