Ep 702 - Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington

Summary

Overdue Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Overdue
• Host/Authors: Andrew and Craig
• Episode: Ep 702 - Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
• Release Date: May 12, 2025

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with Andrew and Craig setting the stage for a deep dive into Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams, marking it as part of their "Tark Week" celebration.

Notable Quotes:

• Craig (02:32): "Welcome to Overdue, a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read."
• Andrew (02:37): "It's Tark week."

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2. Background on Booth Tarkington

Andrew provides a comprehensive overview of Booth Tarkington, emphasizing his notable achievement of being one of only four authors to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice. Despite his success during his lifetime, Tarkington's fame has not endured into modern literary canon.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (04:03): "Booth Tarkington was one of, suppose one of four authors, only four in all of history to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice."
• Craig (08:08): "He was a member of many prestigious eating clubs, including Purdue University's Morley's Eating Club, Princeton University's Ivy Club, the Colonial Club."

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3. Pulitzer Prize Controversies

The hosts delve into Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize wins, highlighting the contentious decisions surrounding his awards. They discuss how the Pulitzer committee's evolving criteria and internal debates led to Tarkington securing his second prize amid controversy, particularly in comparison to contemporaries like Edith Wharton and Sinclair Lewis.

Notable Quotes:

• Craig (20:18): "The main reason why we're here, like the number two reason after his name, sort of mouthfeel of Darkington on the list of reasons why we're talking about this guy."
• Andrew (21:33): "Who shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood."

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4. Plot Summary of Alice Adams

Andrew offers a detailed synopsis of Alice Adams, focusing on the dual narratives of Alice's social aspirations and her father Virgil Adams' struggles with his failing glue business.

Key Plot Points:

• Family Dynamics: The Adams family grapples with financial instability and social status, primarily influenced by Alice's desires to ascend socially.
• Alice's Deception: Alice lies about her family's standing to fit into upper-middle-class circles, notably engaging with Arthur Russell, a suitor from a higher social tier.
• Virgil's Endeavor: Virgil Adams quits his job to start a glue factory, hoping to secure his family's prosperity but faces numerous setbacks.
• Climactic Dinner Party: A disastrous dinner party exposes the family's facade, leading to the unraveling of Alice's lies and the father's business struggles.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (34:01): "This is the first of several quotes that I'm gonna read just to tell you. Like, Booth Tarkington does write a sentence that I like..."
• Andrew (41:33): "The situation is still very funny... Suddenly, everything has come to a standstill."

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5. Character Analysis and Themes

Craig and Andrew analyze the characters, particularly Alice Adams and Virgil Adams, exploring themes of social ambition, honesty, and the illusion of the American Dream. They also touch upon the portrayal of racial stereotypes, acknowledging problematic elements within the novel.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (52:43): "JA Lamb Liquid Glue Co Incorporated... He... Angus... what a sucker you are..."
• Craig (53:25): "The type of skill that did make him a... strong background in character-driven theater."

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6. Critical Reception and Modern Perspectives

The hosts discuss why Tarkington's works, including Alice Adams, have faded from modern literary prominence despite their initial popularity. They attribute this decline to Tarkington's nostalgic writing style, lack of substantial modern themes, and reliance on stereotypical portrayals.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (27:53): "My mentor Daniel Aaron used to say, with reference to Longfellow, another half-forgotten writer."
• Craig (65:36): "It is not modernist in any way... like Virginia Woolf out there, like, breaking through at this exact moment, too."

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7. Conclusion and Future Directions

Andrew and Craig reflect on the merits and shortcomings of Alice Adams, contemplating whether Tarkington deserves renewed attention. They conclude that while the book is entertaining and character-driven, it lacks the depth and innovation that keep certain works enduring in literary canons.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (67:52): "We don't need to reclaim him necessarily."
• Craig (71:50): "Next week with Joan Didion. That's my plan."

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8. Upcoming Episodes and Closing Remarks

The episode wraps up with teasers for future content, including a shift to Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, promising a fresh exploration of different literary landscapes.

Notable Quotes:

• Andrew (70:07): "Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet website. We have the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read..."
• Craig (71:42): "Next week with Joan Didion. That's my plan."

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Overall Insights:

• Booth Tarkington's Legacy: Despite early acclaim and prestigious awards, Tarkington's works like Alice Adams have not maintained a strong presence in contemporary discussions, possibly due to their nostalgic and character-focused narratives lacking enduring thematic depth.

• Literary Context: Alice Adams serves as a window into early 20th-century American society, highlighting class aspirations and familial struggles, yet it falls short when compared to the more groundbreaking works of contemporaries like The Great Gatsby and The Sound and the Fury.

• Modern Relevance: The podcast raises questions about revisiting and re-evaluating Tarkington's contributions to American literature, weighing the book's entertaining aspects against its outdated social portrayals.

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End of Summary

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For more details and to engage with the hosts, listeners are encouraged to visit Overdue Podcast and join their community on Patreon at Patreon.com/overduepod.

Transcript

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[Andrew]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now.

[Craig]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue, a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew. And Craig is finally here. It's Tark week.

[Craig]

We look who's Tarkin now. The Tarkin heads are here. Come on in to das booth. Are you afraid of the tark, Andrew?

[Andrew]

I'm not. I'm not afraid of the tark. I've never been afraid of the tark.

[Craig]

You can't. Can you handle the booth?

[Andrew]

I can handle the booth, yes. You've obviously just written down all these fun jokes that we've Been making in Slack for like two weeks.

[Craig]

Yes, with Megan. Shout out to Megan.

[Andrew]

Thanks, Producer Megan.

[Craig]

Also, I do have to. Just according to one of our supporters. Zup. I just need to say the words Tooth Barkington, which is the name of a dog.

[Andrew]

That is the name of. I'd skim the discord on this. Is this the name of a real dog or does somebody just think this would be a good dog name? I. Tooth Barkington. Because it's. I mean, they're right.

[Craig]

It's on Flickr.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

There's a lot.

[Andrew]

So if it's, if you found it on Flickr, it means that dog died like 10 years ago from 2023. Oh, wow. Okay. All right, Flicker.

[Craig]

So I mean, the dog could. I hope Tooth Barkington is still with us.

[Andrew]

I hope so too.

[Craig]

Booth Tarkington is not.

[Andrew]

He is not.

[Craig]

Notably. This is a podcast where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. Andrew, what book did you read for this week's episode?

[Andrew]

I read Alice Adams by Newton Booth Tarkington.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

You may recall. So Booth Tarkington, just. Just to rewind for a sec. Tark to his friends, Mr. Tarkington was one of, suppose one of four authors, only four in all of history to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction twice.

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

And we ran into this when we were reading.

[Craig]

Was it the, the Colson Whitehead?

[Andrew]

The Colson Whitehead, yeah. Because he's one of the other four and the most recent of the. Of the four. And yeah, it's like people you might expect, like three guys you've heard of and Booth talking.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Are the people who have, who have achieved this honor two times in their, in their care and you know, not going to lie, part of it was just like Booth Tarkington is a rad name. It's fun to say, it's fun to make wordplay out of.

[Craig]

Uh huh.

[Andrew]

But also he's kind of. One thing that he is famous for is that he was a best selling author critically and like publicly beloved during most of his career. He was a bestseller until the end of his life. He wrote many, many books and won many awards, but his fame did not. And that like regard for him did not persist into, into modern times, which is the opposite of how it often goes. Like, even when we read people, usually we read people who are like, yeah, they were a little famous when they, when they were alive and then their work is endured or it's like they were unknown while they were alive, but then something was published posthumously or something was like, reevaluated, and then it was rediscovered, and, like, Moby Dick was a big one like that. I know, like, Emily Dickinson is a big example of that, if you want to. If you want to take another one. But, yeah, it's like the opposite of the normal, typical arc, I think.

[Craig]

I think also this book is published when. 1921. Right. Alice Adams was.

[Andrew]

Yeah, 1921.

[Craig]

I think it was Jason in the Overdue Discord who said that they were looking forward to the episode. They had started the book, and for now, it seems like it was instantly outdated as soon as the Great Gatsby came out. Just a.

[Andrew]

Like, fair.

[Craig]

And I opened up a Lit Hub article from a while ago that's, like, 10 books that defined the 1920s. This is not on there. No, there's no Booth Tarkington mentioned here. It's like, Faulkner, Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Virginia Woolf, the Great Gatsby, Ulysses, like, books. We've all heard of the wasteland.

[Andrew]

The question to ask is, like, is that. Is that person saying, here are the most influential books from the 1920s, writing from the vantage point of somebody 100 years later, or. Because I'm looking at. I'm looking at the theatrical release poster for the 1935 adaptation of Alice Adams.

[Craig]

Starring Katharine Hepburn film. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And our boy Booth's name must have put butts in seats because there's a picture of the book on the poster for movie, for sure. It says, Booth Tarkington's Greatest Prize Story.

[Craig]

Okay. I do love putting the book on the poster that it is.

[Andrew]

Have you seen it? Have you not seen this?

[Craig]

I've only seen photos of Cassie as Alice Adams. I have not.

[Andrew]

It's like, literally, it's like the first thing on the poster is Katherine Hepburn's name, of course. And then the second thing is a picture of the book, Alice Adams, and then there are actors depicted standing in front of it.

[Craig]

This is the reverse of when they put, like, images from the film on a novel.

[Andrew]

Reprints.

[Craig]

This is like. This is the. The flip side of, you know, putting Rudy on your Lord of the Rings cover, you know? Wow, that's funny. Oh, boy.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

No, no, you're right.

[Andrew]

Was. He was.

[Craig]

Big deal.

[Andrew]

He. Yeah, he's bestsellers, but we're down the list. Yeah.

[Craig]

I think, you know, we're going to talk about a couple of reasons why. So, like, we came into it from the Pulitzer thing. So I have some stuff on the PUL thing that I think is interesting to think about. If. If you, like, are pretty much like me. I've done 7, 700 episodes of this show, and I hadn't really thought about the, like, early miasma of the Pulitzer Prizes and, like, what might have been going on then.

[Andrew]

My. Yeah, because my suspicion was, like, okay, because this. And this is what I think made you fall down this research rabbit hole in the first place is I was like, okay, it was 1920 or whatever. Like, figure out what weird thing let Booth Tarkington slip through twice. There's gotta be something there.

[Craig]

Yeah, but as a. As a reader who's been reading for 30 some years now and just been like, the Pulitzers are out there. Well, I don't know when I started being capable of reading something that would win a Pulitzer Prize, but I don't think about it as something that had an early phase until, like, until now, when I'm really, you know, diving into it.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, no, it's just like, you know, we've watched a similar evolution of, like, the. The Spike TV Video Game Awards.

[Craig]

Yes, sure.

[Andrew]

If you want to.

[Craig]

If you want an analog to that, you're not wrong. Okay, so let's start with. With Newton Booth Tarkington, aka Tark to his friends. Born in 1869, passed away in 1946. He's named after Newton Booth, the governor of California. I believe his uncle, or uncle, like, relative of his.

[Andrew]

An uncle, like, relative.

[Craig]

I think it was his uncle, but I don't know if there's a generation removed or not.

[Andrew]

That's fair. Okay, fine.

[Craig]

He, you know, his breakout. He, you know, wants to be a writer, wants to be an illustrator. As he's growing up, he gets shipped off to boarding school as a kid for being truant for, like, nine weeks, and then, you know, goes on to study at Princeton, where he is just a superstar extracurricular boy. Some of these details are going to come from a New Yorker article from 2019 that Andrew found by Robert Gottlieb, the Rise and Fall of Booth Tarkington. How a Candidate for the Great American Novelist Dwindled Into America's Most Distinguished Hack.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

A generous article despite that.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Because like many, many articles, I don't know if it's the case with this one or not. Many articles have headlines and subheadings that are written not.

[Craig]

Yes, fair, fair.

[Andrew]

It's going to get yelled at for, like, the framing in the headline, in the subheading. I found generally that this article had only guesses to. To, like, answer the question that it poses in that headline and subheading, but it is a very good overview of his career and kind of who his contemporaries were. And it was written in, you said in 2019. This was tied to a 2019 Library of America reissue of the Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams. Oh sure, Pulitzer novels and then some other like odds and ends. But yeah, it was a, it was a. I read the Project Gutenberg ebook. Like all of Tark's stuff is in the public domain at this point and you can find like free and well formatted books over there if you are interested in digging into his stuff. But yeah, there are been other more considered reissues of the work that have happened as well.

[Craig]

He was a member of many prestigious eating clubs, including Purdue University's, Morley's Eating Club, Princeton University's Ivy Club, the Colonial Club. I don't know what an eating club is.

[Andrew]

What do you. Yeah, what do you and me got to do to get in on some of these eating clubs?

[Craig]

I don't know. Why would you call it an eating club?

[Andrew]

I mean, it's. If it's what it sounds like, it's pretty self explanatory.

[Craig]

It's just an exclusive social club. You all eat sandwiches together. I don't know.

[Andrew]

It sounds awesome.

[Craig]

It does.

[Andrew]

It's like a club. But I don't have to like do anything. I don't have to play. I've just learned golf or whatever. I can just go and eat all the time.

[Craig]

Yeah, I want in. He also was apparently an accomplished actor in the Triangle Club at Princeton. That's something that the got le piece drives home is just everybody thought he was. So he just had a great time at college.

[Andrew]

Just one loves Booth Sharkington is what the thrust of it is.

[Craig]

After college he starts trying to make his way as a writer. There is a story about his like sister, who is apparently a force of nature, like staging a sit in at an editor's office to make. To make the editor read his manuscript for the Gentleman from Indiana. Gottlieb's piece has a tamer rendition of that tale where she just, you know, made the man read it.

[Andrew]

But this, I do like thinking that there's like a Brooks Brothers riot, but for like Booth Tarkington is, we gotta get this guy in here.

[Craig]

So SS McClure publishes it in McClure's magazine and this is his breakout hit, the Gentleman from Indiana. He has his next novel, Monsieur Beaucaire, 1900 is credited as such a success that it basically campaigned him like for him for his Indiana state legislator seat.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

That he served in for like a year I think before he had to Leave due to typhoid fever. Yeah. I don't know how much we'll talk about his politics today. Maybe a little bit.

[Andrew]

I think the main thing, he did.

[Craig]

Oppose the New Deal.

[Andrew]

He didn't like the New Deal. I don't even know if it was necessarily that he hated all the New Deal. He did really hate fdr.

[Craig]

That's. Yeah, sure. Yes.

[Andrew]

But yeah. Social, like socially conservative and the, the big thing is just very down on modernity and modern technology and even like modern art. The, the New Yorker piece goes into.

[Craig]

He hates Picasso.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like trying to keep Picasso out of the art museum.

[Craig]

He's a rich man.

[Andrew]

Whatever.

[Craig]

He won't let Picasso into his eating club. Can't get, can't come in.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like that, that, that is pitched as one reason why maybe his stuff did not endure as much. Especially if you're comparing them to like Great Gatsby and other stuff that's happening in the early to mid-20s. Well, comparing it, it is very, it's very kind of stuffy in a way. Like it's, it's all like confident, competently written and there's a lot of really funny stuff in this book that we'll talk about later.

[Craig]

But I think.

[Andrew]

Yeah, not, not a lot to say about like the way that society is developing other than that it used to be cleaner and better than it is now.

[Craig]

Yeah. Because I'm thinking about like we, you know, I just read the Sound and the Fury. That's like, you know, seven years later. It is also about like the times. They are a change in.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But it approaches it very differently and has different concerns. And of course like Gatsby is there as a comparison point to this too. He goes on. He's, he's a very accomplished writer. He doesn't stop. He's just writing all the time. In 1914 he has his, you know, big, big hit, Penrod, which I don't remember who it was in. Our discord was like this is the, this is the tark you're reading. And listen, we don't have time to read all the big Tark novels.

[Andrew]

And the thing about Penrod and so it's okay. We just talked about him being like socially conservative and talking about how the times used to be better.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

One thing that, that doesn't really seem to extend to is he did seem like for his day to have like fairly if not progressive, at least like pretty open minded views about like black people and their, their status in society. But whenever they are depicted in a booth. Darkington book, including in Alice Adams. Like, it is. It is not a focal point of Alice Adams. It is like sub. Little Rascals, like, blackface stereotype.

[Craig]

Yep, yep.

[Andrew]

Like, all the. I do not have a quote of any of the black characters who speak in this book because I did not want to read that on the air on my podcast.

[Craig]

Nope. Nope. And like.

[Andrew]

But. But like the. The New Yorker, as the New Yorker Beast points out, like these. And this is why I bring up the Little Rascals.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The what. What is progressive about it is these are like, black children who are being depicted playing alongside white children as, like, full equals. They are all, like. They're all at the same level, and they're all just friends with each other. And it's not that, like, on its face, the race does not enter into it, but just the way that they're depicted, especially the way they're depicted speaking, is just so stereotypical as to kind of defy exaggeration. You know, I mean, and to just.

[Craig]

Make it age like a. A terrible cheese. Like, I am not.

[Andrew]

I'm not giving anybody. You can there. And there's enough other stuff going on, I think, in like, a Huckleberry Finn.

[Craig]

That's the.

[Andrew]

Because to make it.

[Craig]

Twain is a comparison point for him, especially with the Penrod stuff, because it does have this, like, rascally young boy thing. But from everything I've read, it's like, you don't need to go back there. Just read the plane.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's just like, it's super gratuitous. And he doesn't seem to mean anything by it, which kind of makes it worse in some ways. Yeah.

[Craig]

So, you know, he publishes some other things. He publishes the turmoil. He did publish a short story collection called the arena while, you know, while he was in or shortly after he was in office. 1918. The Magnificent Ambersons wins the Pulitzer. We'll talk about this.

[Andrew]

This is the one that's adapted. This is like Wells follow up to Citizen Kane, right?

[Craig]

Yes. Alice Adams, follow up. He wins the Pulitzer for it. We'll talk about it then. He has Gentle Julia, the Midlander, the plutocrat, Claire Ambler, 20 plays.

[Andrew]

I like to think about the Midlander. Like, there can only be one Highlander, but there can be lots of Midlanders. It's fine.

[Craig]

He did marry twice. One marriage with Laura Louisa Fletcher, who was a poet. They, you know, they had a kid who had some trouble. He was an alcoholic. They divorced. Not the kid. He was an alcoholic.

[Andrew]

Sharkington was. Yes.

[Craig]

And then he remarried Susanna Kiefer Robinson, who apparently he, like, you know, did away with his alcoholism and she supported him through that. And he just kept writing. He did, like, the latter part of his career in life was defined by some troubles with his eyes and a lot of surgery. There are a lot of articles in the New York Times, way back Machine or whatever it's called, about him getting eye surgery. Just like everyone is concerned about Booth Tarkington's business.

[Andrew]

He's America. He's America's sweetheart. Booth Tarkington is.

[Craig]

There's a lot of him in years. You told me to go in there just to see, like, if maybe there was some Pulitzer stuff. And I found some. Yeah, I also found a three paragraph article where the title is Tarkington Dooms Skirts. Novelist says women will dress like men in his time from 1926. And it's just like, I guess a reporter was hanging out with him in Maine, and he just, like, popped off about like, listen, they don't need to wear skirts. The custom is not to wear skirts anymore. They'll probably stop wearing skirts. And that's it.

[Andrew]

Had it right, I guess eventually ladies be wearing pants. I've seen them.

[Craig]

It's all just quotes.

[Andrew]

Seen him. I've seen them in real life, it's.

[Craig]

All in quotes except for said Booth Tarkington, the novelist, yesterday at his summer home. What was going on at the time that day?

[Andrew]

That's. You just gotta fill the inches, I guess. You just got. You just gotta print. You gotta print something. I don't know.

[Craig]

So funny.

[Andrew]

We're like, between wars maybe, and there's just like, not a lot. Not a lot to do.

[Craig]

So we have. Let's go to the Pulitzer, Andrew.

[Andrew]

And then let's go to the Pulitzer. The main reason why we're. We're here, like the number two reason after his name, sort of mouthfeel of Darkington on the list of reasons why we're talking about this guy.

[Craig]

So he wins for the Ambersons, and he wins for Alice Adams. Anderson's wins the Pulitzer in 1919. It's the second Pulitzer for fiction.

[Andrew]

Whoa.

[Craig]

At that time, the Pulitzer Award for best novel. The. The Pulitzers had started in 1917, and they were supposed to give one out, but they only received six entries, one of which was a manuscript, so it was ineligible. And the rest of them, they were like, I mean, they're good, but, like, none of them stand out. So they didn't give one. All right, One of them was a Booth. And then in 1919, it's worth noting Andrew. That in Pulitzer's will, it had, like, the standards for which you judged each award.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And for this category for the American novel published during the year, which shall best present the whole atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood.

[Andrew]

Whoa. Okay, that actually seems really limiting and superficial.

[Craig]

Well, it underwent some rev. Sure. And so in 1919, they once again are like, we don't know if anybody should get this award. There's three judges, and they're like, we don't know if we're gonna tell the board we're not gonna give an award again. And then one guy writes the secretary and he's like, is it too late to just give it to Booth Tarkington?

[Andrew]

No, never.

[Craig]

He says, I have a letter from one of the judges who says, I would have voted to give it the prize rather than not award one.

[Andrew]

Huh.

[Craig]

So they just can't bear to not give out an award the second year of the award and just give it to Booth.

[Andrew]

If you were saying, here we. We are creating an award. Yes, but you are. Nobody was good enough to get it this year. We're really sorry. Like, you and I could do that.

[Craig]

Uh huh. They. They. In the first year, they didn't give an award. The second year of the Pulitzers at all. They give the first novel award. Then they. Then they're like, well, maybe we should give it. We should give it out again. Please. We should give it out again. We're gonna give it to Booth. 1920. There's a hole to do because they're not sure if they're gonna give it out again. There's a new guy on the board, and he wants to give it to this novel called Java Headsheimer, I think is the author's name. It involves a. An interracial marriage.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And they think it is licentious or whatever. Is that the word? Licentious? Licentious.

[Andrew]

I think licentious is what you're going for. Yes.

[Craig]

Vaguely immoral seems to be what they thought it was. And also, someone had changed the Pulitzer language from whole of America whole atmosphere of American life to wholesome atmosphere of American life.

[Andrew]

That's different.

[Craig]

That's different. And now we're concerned about moral work.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You were adding a sum that really changes the. The meaning of the. Of the sentiment.

[Craig]

Yep. So then in 1921, Edith Wharton wins for Age of Innocence when the board overrid the jury who wanted to give it to a Sinclair Lewis novel that was a satire that they thought was too scandalous. Okay, so again, we're like, picking apart this, like, sentence of what a dead man meant. And I'm. I'm getting some of this from this, like, interesting book from the Pulitzer Prize archive that was put together in, like, 1994. And then they say, like, okay, it's 1922. There's no commentary. It's the best novel of 1921. Alice Adams is. Which can be construed as coming under the terms of the Pulitzer competition. There's like. They're just like, okay. I looked at the bestsellers of that year, according to Publishers Weekly, and it's like, still, Sinclair Lewis from the previous year. Alice Adams isn't on the list. There's just not anything that I recognize as, like, could have. Could have beaten him. I don't know what they were against. Yes. And then it's, like, maybe 15 years before on the. On the list of them other than Sinclair Lewis, that I recognize another author and I guess certain Wilder is in there. But it's like, it isn't until 37 with gone with the Wind that I recognize a book in that run.

[Andrew]

So these guys. These guys just don't know what they're doing.

[Craig]

What they're doing. And, like, Sinclair Lewis is getting all this press because he's, like, refusing their award because they snubbed him five years ago. And they're, like, subtly updating the language of this statement by which they're judging all these books, and it just seems like they're like, well, if we're doing the wholesome American life with American Manhood, maybe two of our first four awards should go to Booth Tarkin.

[Andrew]

Should go to Booth Tarkington, Everybody's favorite guy.

[Craig]

It's like, I don't know, man. They are just figuring it out. We will.

[Andrew]

But now he. But I mean, this redounds to our boy Booth's benefit, though, because now he gets to be on the same list as all these people who went through the same process when it was not a lot harder to get it twice.

[Craig]

And the. The thing where this is exactly what.

[Andrew]

I figured happened, though, like, something like this, if not exactly.

[Craig]

I also think that giving it to Targeton again in the year after all of the hullabaloo around Wharton and Sinclair Lewis is probably like a. Let's play it safe. Let's.

[Andrew]

Here's the consensus choice.

[Craig]

Yeah, we're not. No one's gonna go out. Out on a limb here and make some, like, crazy case. So that. That's kind of my thinking of what happened. I do want to flag this. I think we're going to be covering another recent Pulitzer winner next month, Andrew. And there is some hullabaloo around. Not big hullabaloo, but there is some intrigue around that choice as well, so.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Whether or not the board overrides the jury is apparently a thing that has, like, happened in the past. Past.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

So anything else about our boy Tark that you want to flag before we dive in?

[Andrew]

Well, you know, we talked about that New Yorker article and the kind of supposition that it makes that. That one of the reasons that. Okay, here, I'll just. I'll just read the quote is what was it, finally, that kept so capable a writer as Tarkington from producing so little of real substance? Yes, he lacked the fierceness and conviction of a Dreiser or a Lewis, and his talent was descriptive rather than penetrating. And he was almost pathologically non confrontational. But ultimately, what stands between him and any large achievement is his deeply rooted, unappeasable need to look longingly backward, an impulse that goes beyond nostalgia. He tries conscientiously to identify benefits that can be ascribed to the march of progress. But what he registers and mourns is the loss of tradition and civility. He also tries to celebrate the virtues of emotional maturity, but where he really wants to live is in his boyhood with all its harmless escapades, under the protective eye of a benevolent mother. So, you know, that's. I feel like that's a. That's a decent theory. It's still a little, kind of vague and, like, guessy, as I'd said.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew]

So something else that I had run into as I was researching our boy Booth is that the Indiana University Bloomington has a sort of exhibit on Indiana authors.

[Craig]

Well, he's from the golden age of Indiana Literature, Andrew, 1880-1920. I'm not sure if he. You knew that?

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

No, just putting that out there. The Hoosiers.

[Andrew]

No, it's. I did not know that about the Hoosiers. Thank you. Thank you very much. This exhibit is put together mostly by Christoph Ermsher, who is also an author and critic, as well as distinguished professor of English at Indiana University, Bloomington. And so your boy emailed him.

[Craig]

You did. You did a journalism.

[Andrew]

I did a journalism. I did original research for our Booth Tarkington Epic. And I was just like, can you tell me. Like, can you tell me what the deal with this guy is? It was the gist of what I had written, and he. He wrote back to us, and. And I want to. I want to read his Reply on the air because I want to contribute to the body of scholarship about sure. And what his deal is, he says. I'm not sure if I have any grand theories that go beyond Gottlieb's suggestion that it was perhaps Tarkington's nostalgia that killed his reputation. He wrote well and copiously, but there can be too much of a good thing if it's not sustained by a substantial message he has, as the examples included in my exhibition show, an appealing sense of humor that makes us forget his politics as a writer. And Alice Adams is a case in point, too. He was better than his views. And a sentence like Congress is our greatest virtue, but Congressmen are our greatest fault has sadly become apropos again.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

A new generation of readers might rediscover him, though I don't think that happened with the Library of America edition. More push might be needed, as my mentor Daniel Aaron used to say, with reference to Longfellow, another half forgotten writer. American literature isn't so rich that it can do without figures like Tarkington. Maybe your podcast will help, he says. So everybody, we. We've got our assignment.

[Craig]

Everybody hold hands.

[Andrew]

It's like, are we bringing. Are we bringing Booth back?

[Craig]

I mean, I guess cast your ballot at the end of the episode. We're bringing him back.

[Andrew]

I don't. I don't know. We need. I don't know that we need to bring him back. I. I didn't. I enjoyed this book. I think if more people read some Boots Harkington and found some stuff to enjoy it, I think that would be nice. But, like, a lot of it is, like, pretty racist. Racist.

[Craig]

I do just think it's interesting that you and I had never heard of this.

[Andrew]

Never heard of Boost Harkington.

[Craig]

That's what's fascinating. I don't need to.

[Andrew]

His name appears on movie posters. His whole book up here on movie posters.

[Craig]

I've never gotten my book posters.

[Andrew]

There's important stuff from life in school that I have forgotten so that I can remember the tagline for the movie Volcano, which is the coastest host.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so I should. I should have at least this much brain space for Booth Darkington because he also appeared on a movie poster. But I don't like it.

[Craig]

Just.

[Andrew]

It just didn't register until now.

[Craig]

Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then you can tell me how you felt about Alice Adams and we can collectively decide if he should get two episodes of Overdue. Like, he got two Pulitzer Prizes.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

This show is sponsored By Better Help. Andrew Craig, how aware are you of mental health?

[Andrew]

I am constantly aware of it.

[Craig]

Sure. Good.

[Andrew]

I know all about that. It exists.

[Craig]

Okay, great. Because mental health awareness is growing, but there's still progress to be made. Too many Americans avoid seeking mental health support due to fear of judgment. And when people hesitate to get help, it doesn't just affect them, it can impact their families, their workplaces, their communities. Andrew May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So let's all be like Andrew. Let's, you know, break the stigma around seeking support. Encourage everyone to take care of their well being. The world is better when people are healthy. Am I right? Yeah, I'm right. Thank you.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I agree.

[Craig]

Good. Glad you agree. Let's move on. I think therapy can be a powerful tool for processing experiences, for setting goals, and for showing up as your full self for the people in your life. If folks have been thinking of trying therapy at home, I strongly think that they should. Better help has over 10 years of experience matching people with the right therapist from their diverse network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists. It's fully online, which helps make therapy affordable and convenient. And their therapists have a wide range of specialties. So if you need to switch therapists at any time, you can do so at no extra cost. We're all better with help. Visit betterhelp.com overdue to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp H-E-L-P.com overdue. My name is Alice, and I'm here to say. I'm here to Adams in a major way. I didn't read the book, so can you fix me? Tell me what I should have said instead?

[Andrew]

What is happening? Okay. Alice Adams, famously, by. It's Booth Tarkington's greatest prize story. Alice Adams.

[Craig]

Sure. Neither. This novel was not mentioned at all in his obituary in the New York Times. There's a lot of other things they covered instead.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, probably the Penrod stuff was. Was up there. Like, I think that was one of his bigger, like, enduring contributions. But yeah. So. So this book is fundamentally about a young woman who is kind of, like, lower middle class, and she wants to be perceived as, like, upper middle class.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And she tells a lot of lies.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

To people. To kind of make that. To create the illusion of that. Sure. And then there's also a subplot where her dad is sick, and then he quits his job so he can start a glue factory. And then things go bad.

[Craig]

Huh. Not what I was expecting.

[Andrew]

So Our novel begins with one Virgil Addams, who's the patriarch of the Addams family. He is sick in bed with some non specified illness. He has been there for a while. He's like slowly convalescing. Like he's on the. He's on a very slow upswing, but it's been a long time. And his wife keeps. I mean, for lack of a better word, keeps nagging him. She's awful, boy. And she keeps complaining to him like, listen, our son. Our son Walter and our daughter Alice, they don't have everything that their peers have. They don't have everything that people in the new generation should have. We live in. We live in kind of a crappy house. We can't really afford to keep help on full time. And you, you jerk, could have fixed all of this if you would just quit working in that hole that you work in and go set out on your own.

[Craig]

Okay?

[Andrew]

Why haven't you done this?

[Craig]

Oh, boy. She's got demands.

[Andrew]

So I guess I wanna. So that. That is the situation that the family is in. This is the first of several quotes that I'm gonna read just to tell you. Like, Boots Harkington does write a sentence that I like, okay. He. He writes things that. That strike me funny. This is talking about their house and just talking about the kind of state of. Not poverty, but like, not quite as like aristocratic as they would like to be. They live in a house about 15 years old. It's kind of falling apart a little bit. This is the quote. Solid, compact and convenient were the instructions to the architect. And he had made it compact successfully.

[Craig]

Oh. Oh, no. Oh.

[Andrew]

So everything that happens from here and the two main plots are like, what's happening with Alice's dad? And then what's happening with Alice? Like her brother's in it as kind of a side character. He mostly exists to be kind of a ne' er do well who gets into some trouble at the end of the book and creates some pressure on Virgil Adams and his situation. And then Alice Adams, she goes to a dance that she was like barely invited to and dances with this. A guy named Arthur Russell who is kind of a.

[Craig]

Well, two first names, but okay, yeah.

[Andrew]

Arthur Russell is kind of. He's got two first names. He's rolled into town, is a member of this like upper middle class that Alice is like really, really adjacent to, but cannot quite.

[Craig]

He's been to some eating clubs, you.

[Andrew]

Might say he's probably in a couple of eating clubs. And I would love to know how you get into those or start them.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I mean, apparently, you and I could just like, start our own awards now and leave the kind of vague instructions. And if people just keep giving them out over the next hundred years, like, it becomes a thing. So can we just, like. Can we just, like, do. Can we just do that? Can we make.

[Craig]

I mean, our community has set up the OD Awards. We have the power here.

[Andrew]

Yeah. We have the infrastructure for it.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

We just have to make it public. Like, more public than it is.

[Craig]

Yeah. Well, that might ruin the magic. But anyway.

[Andrew]

And so Alice meets this feller, Arthur Russell, at this dance. He is kind of smitten with her. Like, he's. He's technically there with, like, his third cousin. And it's. It's spelled out that they are third cousins. So it's cool that. Yeah, like, everybody thinks that he's gonna marry her, his cousin. Okay. But he wants to. He wants to dance with Alice. And when Alice is like, hey, can you find my stupid brother who's probably off, like, doing who knows what, he goes and he looks around until he finds Alice's brother and brings him. Brings him back to her. Alice's brother is a weird character. He likes to hang out with black people who. He has lots of, like, bad terms to call them.

[Craig]

I don't like that.

[Andrew]

There's lots of things that I'm not gonna say, but every once in a while, he says something funny. No, no. She whispered, we must speak to Mildred and Mr. And Mrs. Palmer talking about some kind of. Of aristocrats at this. At this dance that they're at.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Walter should go and pay respect to. And Walter says, speak to him. I haven't got a thing to say to those berries.

[Craig]

What.

[Andrew]

Just makes me want to call people berries.

[Craig]

Yeah, this. I can see why this worked for you.

[Andrew]

Like people. I don't live just people. I don't like all those berries. No, thank you.

[Craig]

Those berries. Yeah.

[Andrew]

That's got nothing to say to those berries.

[Craig]

Open up the fridge. I'm not eating those berries.

[Andrew]

A description of somebody who Alice is dancing with. Not. Not Arthur Russell, who is bad at dancing. He paid no attention to anything suggested by the efforts of the musicians and appeared to be unaware that there should be. Appeared to be unaware that there should have been some connection between what they were doing and what he was doing.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay. This guy knows how to crack a joke.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And, like, you know, there's a lot of other kind of flowery sentence work that's happening that's, like, not. Not as gripping but every once in a while you hit him. Like, coming at this sentiment in kind of a roundabout way, that surprises you. And that was the stuff that I think I liked most about this book. But anyway, Arthur Russell meets Alice Adams at this party, and then they meet again in the. In the street. Alice is kind of. She's gone out to get some cheap, like, pipe tobacco for her dad as he continues to recover. And she is passing by this building that will become relevant later. That is a sort of a. It's a business school. It's in, like, a. Like a rundown old building. And all you can really see from the outside are the stairs that go up into this dark area. And it's implied, like, if you. You go in there to, like, learn how to be like a. I don't know, like a stenographer or whatever. And it's kind of a place where hopes. It's kind of a place where hopes go to die. Okay, Is this business school? So she runs into Arthur Russell, and they start talking. And it becomes clear that. I mean, it was clear to us, the reader, that Arthur Russell was. Was into her in the first place, but it becomes clear to her that he is into her. And, man, she just starts telling all kinds of lies. Like, she doesn't want to be caught with cheap, like, pipe tobacco. So she's lying about what the deal is with that, and she's lying about what people in town have to say about her. And just, like, starts almost instantly, creating this impression of her as somebody who is kind of a little bit above it all and somebody who people are always kind of talking about, just like. Who's just like a mover and shaker in this community. Almost everything she had said to him was upon spontaneous impulse springing to her lips on the instant. Yet it all seemed to have been founded upon a careful design, as if some hidden self kept such designs in stock and handed them up to her ready made to be used for its own purpose. Just lying to this guy.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so they start, you know, he. He starts coming by their house, and they just, like, sit on the back porch and talk, and it's only them and like nobody else. And he keeps kind of asking her, what kind of girl are you? Like, what are people going to say? And she kind of laughs at, like, laughs it off and deflects and continues to create this, like, illusion of herself. So that is as far as I want to take us in the Alice plot before I go back over to the Virgil plot.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay. Is there a corollary of this lying in his plot, or it's just like other stuff is happening?

[Andrew]

No, it's other stuff. Other stuff's going on, but it's all tied into the family's kind of means and where they. Whereas especially Mrs. Adams thinks that they should exist in society. But it's only coming. It's all coming from this place of like, shouldn't. Shouldn't we have more than we do? Shouldn't we be better off than we are?

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Is Virgil Adams has worked for like 20 years, 25 years. Like, more than that for this guy, Ja Lamb, who's a big businessman. I want to read a description of him when we first meet him, because he swings by the Addams household to go up and to check on Virgil because he's not like a regular boss. He's a good boss. He's a cool boss.

[Craig]

Listen, every once in a while there's a cool boss, but it's impossible to replicate. Everybody else struggles with their boss.

[Andrew]

The fine old gentleman revealed when she opened the door was probably the last great merchant in America to wear the chin beard, white as white frost. It was trimmed short with exquisite precision, while his upper lip and the lower expanses of his cheeks were clean and rosy from fresh shaving. With this trim white chin beard, the white waistcoat, the white tie, the suit of fine gray cloth, the broad and brilliantly polished black shoes, and the wide brim gray felt hat. Here was a man who had found his style in the 70s of the last century and thenceforth kept it. Files of old magazines of that period might show him in woodcut as type of Boston merchant. Masks might have drawn him as an honest statesman. He was 80, hale and sturdy, not aged, and his quick blue eyes, still unflecked and as brisk as a boy, saw everything. This is JA Lamb, we're led to believe mostly good things about him. Virgil Adams puts him way up on a pedestal. And he does seem to be fair, like, pretty cool. Like, Mr. Virgil Adams has been sick for who knows how long, like months or weeks. And Lamb comes by to check on him and be like, listen, however long it takes you to come back to work, come back to work. But the. I don't know, like the. The factory or whatever it is that Lam runs, just like vague a bit. Some vague business concern in town where Virgil works. This is the hole that Mrs. Adams wants him to stop working at. Because he. She thinks that he is. That Virgil Adams is being underpaid and that Lamb is kind of snowballing him and underpaying him and making him feel like he is taken care of and paid adequately, even though he is not. And turns out that many years ago, Virgil Adams and another person who works for Lamb had been put together. Like, a chemist who works from. For Lam had been put together on this, like, special team. And they were supposed to research, like, adhesives and glue and come up with a liquid glue that actually holds things together that everybody's going to love. And they did. But by the time they did, one, the chemist guy dies. And then, number two, Lamb kind of loses interest in the venture and goes off like, chasing something else. Like, some of this is just like a. He's just playing around. He's just, like, chasing what interests him. And so for a couple of decades, Virgil Adams has no. Has had in his head this, like, formula for glue that every. Everybody's gonna be nuts about this glue when it finally hits the market. But Lamb's not interested in pursuing it. But he did tell Mrs. Adams about it, and Mrs. Adams has been on him for decades. He shouldn't have saying, like, you gotta.

[Craig]

You gotta quit.

[Andrew]

You gotta quit your job. You gotta start out on your own, and you gotta. You gotta become a glue magnate. And this is the secret. This is the thing that will make our family rich and prosperous. And it's all your fault that you have not done this because you wouldn't.

[Craig]

Tell anyone about your glue ideas.

[Andrew]

Yeah. What a sucker you are to know this about glue and to not have followed through with it.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

And so she. And she and Alice. Alice sort of, kind of unwittingly, by accident. And Mrs. Addams definitely on purpose convince Virgil Adams that Alice is kind of suffering from being excluded from the right social circles. This is before they know that she's hanging out with Arthur Russell. Like, he is mostly a secret until a disastrous dinner party at the end, which is where these kind of two plot lines collide in a Seinfeldian way. And which is why I only brought us up to a certain point in the Alice plot before I switched over to the Virgil plot. But he.

[Craig]

Things are about to get sticky.

[Andrew]

Yes. He. Yes, things are about to get very sticky. Thanks to this great glue. Virgil Adams delivers his notice to Mr. Lamb through, like, an intermediary. And Lamb just, like, reads the letter and doesn't say anything and is, like, kind of just silently thinking and ignoring people in his office because this guy, who he thought he had a read on, has just quit his job to go off and to do this glue factory thing. Oh, and Virgil. Virgil Kind of convinces himself that, you know, Lamb probably doesn't remember it. And it's. I'm gonna make some changes to the glue formula, so it might as well be mine. And it's all. It's all gonna work out great. So he rents a crappy little building in a crappy part of the town and starts firing up his glue factory, like, hiring people who he barely has money to hire. He's getting a loans. He's going into a little bit of debt, but he's going to make this work. He's going to be a business boy. And after he's kind of rented this building, there's a big, huge, expensive, emptied factory across the street that somebody comes in and starts fixing up. And he's like, man, I am a successful businessman. My taking a chance on this bad part of town is bringing new industry back in already and kind of reviving Virgil the town.

[Craig]

My dude.

[Andrew]

Things are. Things are going great for old Virgil Adams. And so they. He's doing this. He's working himself to the bone at this glue factory which stinks like stinky glue.

[Craig]

Yeah, I bet. Not fun. No.

[Andrew]

And he. So he is doing this. Arthur Russell is coming by for dinner. Mrs. Adams has convinced Virgil Adams, I know we don't have any money right now because you got it all wrapped up in this glue thing. And I love. I love that you're doing the glue thing finally. But can we have 15 so we can buy nice food and hire temporary help and make it look like we are rich and fancy for Alice's tutor, who is coming by. And the dinner party that ensues from this, like, Virgil Adams, like, he has this, like, the buttonhole on his shirt that's, like, too big, so it keeps coming unbuttoned. And Mrs. Adams is, like, ironing stuff, and she's like, singeing the clothes. And the. The cook who they hired is cooking Brussels sprouts, and it makes the whole house stink. And it's a hot, hot, hot day in the middle of a heat wave. And the first course is hot soup. And the house is, like, falling apart and a little bit dirty. And Arthur Russell at dinner the evening before his. Everybody else in the family, the talk had turned to the Addams clan because word has gotten around that Virgil Adams kind of stabbed his boss in the back.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

And Mildred, who is Arthur Russell's cousin, who everybody thought he was there to marry, is like, Alice comes up, and it turns out that she would just, like, come around all the time until Mildred kind of had to Go, like, hide from her because she didn't want to be Alice's friend, but she also didn't want to be rude. And they're just talking about Virgil Adams being kind of a. Kind of a weird guy. Alice Adams being kind of a climber who is like. Who like, pushes on stuff and sort of tries to get into circles where she's not really welcome. And Arthur Russell, like, having been trying to. This is the first time he's ever heard anybody other than Alice talk about Alice.

[Craig]

That's an interesting, like, shoe to drop.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So it makes him be like, well, wait a sec. Do I. Is this. What's. What's going on with this girl and her family? And it's not. What he's struck by the most is not even that they're talking about it in a malicious way. It's just like they know so little about these people and, like, care so little about them that it's just like passing dinner party conversation. It's not even. They're. They're not even important enough to be kind of hated or talked about maliciously. It's just like they're funny. Didn't you hear this funny anecdote?

[Craig]

Oh, that's not. That's worse.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And so the Adamses are just not. There's not. They're not the people who Alice has kind of implied that they are and who Virgil Adams thinks that they should be.

[Craig]

Huh.

[Andrew]

So I don't know, Craig, if you immediately guess what was happening with the factory across the street from Virgil Adams's.

[Craig]

Glue works, I. I mean, I imagine that's. That's Mr. Lamb.

[Andrew]

And what is. What do you think Mr. Lamb's doing over there?

[Craig]

Making glue.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yeah. Like, exactly.

[Craig]

What's making also good glue.

[Andrew]

Making also good glue in a competent and much like, larger way, in a way that's clearly designed to put Virgil Adams out of business because he is hurt.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But what is. What's also happening at the same time is like their ne' er do. Well son Walter is also working at Lambs, and he. He never got fired, which people think is kind of the Adams is. Are like, that's a little weird, isn't it? Like, if they had it out for you, Virgil wouldn't Lamb if fired Walter. And then it turns out that Walter was like, stealing money and he shows up one day to ask for $350 and he will not tell anybody why he needs it. And they're like, no, I don't have $350 to give you.

[Craig]

And it's 1921. Stop it, you idiot.

[Andrew]

And then Walter runs away.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And so land. So Virgil Adams gets to his glue factory one day, and then he reads on the side of this big building across the street. Oh, this is J. A Lamb's, like, very Good Glue concern, or whatever it is that he calls it. Let me see if I can find the actual name of the glue.

[Craig]

The Berries Love this glue.

[Andrew]

Berries Love this glue.

[Craig]

While you're looking that up, this, like, the dinner party stuff that you described, it does strike me that what is working here, at least from a, like, a character interaction perspective, is also the type of skill that did make him a. You know, he's remembered as a novelist first, but he was successful as a playwright. Had success as a playwright. Some of, you know, his scripts and stories got turned into film. It does seem like one of the things that's popping is just the way the characters interact with one another, the way they wish to be perceived, which is an Alice thing.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Craig]

And the way that they are concerned about being perceived. Like, all of that works in, like, a comedy of manners that is very, you know, apropos for this, like, era in particular. It strikes me I was looking at, like, one of his bigger successes. The Man from home was like, 1907. It's also a comedy. And, yeah, it just, like, this all makes sense to me as a guy who would, like, also have a. A strong background in character driven, like, theater.

[Andrew]

Yeah, the name actually isn't as funny as I thought it was.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

The situation is still very funny. Why, great God. The foreman exclaimed. He ain't even seen it. Look. Look yonder. Adam stared vaguely at the man's outstretched hand and pointing forefinger, then turned and saw a great sign upon. Upon the facade of the big factory building across the street. The letters were large enough to be read two blocks away. After the 15th of next month, this building will be occupied by the JA Lamb Liquid Glue Co Incorporated. A gray touring car had just come to rest before the principal entrance of the building, and JA Lamb himself descended from it. He glanced over toward the humble rival of his projected great industry, saw his old clerk, and immediately walked across the street and the lot to speak to him. Well, Adams, he said in his husky, cheerful voice, how's your glue works?

[Craig]

What? Man, I wish those two guys could have stuck together.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I kind of had some such notion, he said. You see, Virgil, I couldn't exactly let you walk off with it like swallering a pat of butter, now, could I?

[Craig]

Swallowing.

[Andrew]

Swallowing is. Yeah. Swallering is how like swallowing a pat of butter, now, could I? It didn't look exactly reasonable to expect me to let it go like that, now, did it? But what saves Lamb is that Adam, Virgil Adams also thinks that Lamb did all that stuff with Walter on purpose as, like, vengeance for, huh, what Virgil Adams did. And he's like, no, I didn't. Like, no, I didn't do that. And then Virgil, as they are arguing, and he's like, telling Lamb, you know, I used to. I used to think so much of you. I don't think anything of you anymore. And this all is terrible. He relapses, has another, like, sort of stroke, ish kind of thing, and then Lamb, for the second time, like, brings him back to the house to kind of recover. And Lamb ends up. And Mrs. Mrs. Adams sees, of course, kind of a, like, bad intent behind this. Like, of course he's buying you out.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because he. Because he thinks he can do it for a song. And you're gonna let him. But Lamb is like, yeah, I'll just, like, I'll pay off the mortgage for the house, and I will cover Walter's debt, and we'll just call it square. Like, he does kind of do Virgil a kindness here. It's hard. I don't. I'm. I'm. I. It's tough for me to be like, this boss seems cool. Because he probably isn't cool.

[Craig]

No. He's, like, bought a whole factory just to crush this man.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But Virgil Adams also seems like kind of a dunce. So.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

So it's hard. I don't know. It's. It's hard to say if Lamb does him a good turn or not. At the end, I think. I think the reader is meant to be like, oh, that Lamb seems, like, not that bad. He could. He could have been a lot worse than he was.

[Craig]

Sure. You just, like. You don't like it. It feels a little Pollyanna to you as, like, a. Like, things are working out a little too well.

[Andrew]

No, it's. Even though. Even though this is happening, it's like, yeah, this is just barely going to get him out of debt, and they still have to, like, bring borders into the house, and Virgil Adams is going to die a landlady's husband, which he doesn't want to do.

[Craig]

Okay. What happens with Alice? You've told me a lot about the glue factory run by the father of the titular character.

[Andrew]

I like the glue factory art.

[Craig]

I can tell it's fun. And I also remember you telling me before we were recording that, you were just, like, a little lukewarm on just what the novel was up to. It sounds like maybe that was the Alice plotline for you.

[Andrew]

Well, so, I mean, the Alice plotline is Arthur Russell comes over for this catastrophic dinner with the Brussels sprouts and hot soup and everything that I already explained to you. And they go out. He has heard about Alice for the first time from somebody else, and he goes over and he sees with his own eyes like this. This girl is not who she has said she is, and I don't know if I can go through with this. So they go after, you know, disaster strikes. And as the news is coming in about stuff going bad, about stuff going bad with Walter, and, like, yeah, sure, sure. As that is happening, Alice and Arthur Russell go out on the back porch and they kind of just, like, say goodbye. And Alice, you know, he had said, you know, there's nothing that anybody could say about you that would. That would make me run away from you. But then Alice was like, oh, it's something that I said about that made you go away from me.

[Craig]

Oh, snap. The logic.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And so. And so he leaves, and he's not coming back. She's not going to be engaged to anybody. That her house of lies has come crumbling down upon her head. Like, figuratively speaking.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

To the. So, okay, we talked about Booth Tarkington a lot at the beginning.

[Craig]

We did. We had a lot to say about Booth because.

[Andrew]

Because it's Tark week, and if you're gonna have a. I think the plot of this book is fun, and I had a lot. I had fun reading it. I think there is some, like, super problematic stuff that I've mostly allided over that if you choose to read this book after hearing me talk about it, you're gonna be like, well, that sucks. So let's say I didn't kind of warn you about it.

[Craig]

Okay, great.

[Andrew]

But, like, you know, the story is entertaining. I can see why it would make a good Katharine Hepburn movie with Katharine Hepburn as Alice.

[Craig]

Did you, like, enjoy. Did maybe enjoy is not the right word. Did you find Alice interesting as a character to read?

[Andrew]

Well, so that's what I'm. That's what I'm getting to is, like, we've got a couple different people. Supposing that the reason why Booth Tarkington has not had kind of the sticking power of some of his peers and, like, immediate, you know, the people who followed him immediately in American literature is like, he's got this nostalgia thing. He's looking back, I think what struck me a little bit about Alice Adams is, like, it did not feel like it had any sort of larger thing to say for the most part. Yeah, it didn't really. It felt like it probably accurately captured the feel of, like, this particular kind of society in this particular kind of Midwestern suburbia. To the extent that it does have anything, like, larger that it wants to say, it is kind of using Alice as the. As the person to. To make that point. Okay, so there. There's a scene. Probably the most, like, poignant part of the book is there's this sequence where Alice finds this old, like, love letter that her dad had written to her mom. And we've seen already at this point in the book, her dad and her mom just, like, arguing back and forth constantly. It's about the glue factory thing, but it's not just about the glue factory thing. Like, they really seem pretty miserable with each other. And Alice has read this love letter from them where they were young and, like, obviously in love and talking about how much they wanted to see each other. And, like, her dad had, like, just gotten his first job with the. With Lam's company and that, you know, he was gonna be making a good salary and be. He'd be able to provide and everything was going to be great for them. And for the first. So this. She. She's just finished reading this letter. For the first time, she was vaguely perceiving that life is an everlasting movement. Youth really believes what is running water to be permanent crystallization and sees time fixed to a point. Some people have dark hair, some people have blonde hair, some people have gray hair. Until this moment, Alice had no conviction that there was a universe. Before she came into it, she had always thought of it as the background of herself. The moon was something to make her prettier on a summer night. But this old letter, through which she saw still flickering an ancient starlight of young love, astounded her. Faintly before her, it revealed the whole lives of her father and mother, who had been young after all. They really had. And their youth was now so utterly passed from them that the picture of it in this letter was like a burlesque of them. And so she herself must pass to such changes, too. And all that now seemed vital to her would be nothing. And then it comes back around to this a little bit later in the book where, like, everything is kind of falling apart. Things are. Things are not going great for them. Like, they're going to survive. But things didn't go the way that they're, you know, their most ambitious visions of the future told them that it might go.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

And she says, well, then she said, what's the use of talking about a finish? We do keep looking ahead to things as if they'd finished something, but when we get to them, they don't finish anything. They're just part of going on. I'll tell you, I looked ahead all summer to something I was afraid of. And I said to myself, well, if that happens, I'm finished. But it wasn't so, Papa. It did happen, and nothing's finished. I'm going on just the same. Only she stopped and blushed. Only what? He asked. Well, she blushed more deeply, then jumped up and standing before him, caught both his hands in hers. Well, don't you think since we do have to go on, we ought at least to have learned some sense about how to do it? So there's kind of some. Some poignant stuff about time passing, some stuff about, you know, if. If we're. If this, like, bad stuff is gonna happen to us, maybe we should at least learn from it then. The end of the book is like her going up the stairs to this business school that she had passed by earlier. And she's always thought, wouldn't it be horrible to have to go to this business school? But she goes up and it's like dark in the middle. And then she gets to the top and the, like the top of the stairs, there's like a window and sunshine's coming in and things, you know, things don't look so bad. So, you know, there's a. There's a little bit of. Of a glimmer of something there. But I think if you're looking for, like, a bigger point about society and what's happening in it in the style of like a Great Gatsby or something, you are not going to find it in this specific book. And I've, you know, I haven't read a lot of Bootstrackington, but all the. All the informed people who I have read who have told me about Boots Arkington kind of imply to me that this is like, emblematic of the work that he does.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

It's like, it's entertaining, it's character driven. There's a lot of writing in here that I think is very fun.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And some very sitcom y situations, as happens at the dinner party. Like, it truly is the fun, the. The farcical, like, oh, my boss is coming over for dinner and everything has to be perfect. Like that old, like, 60s sitcom plot line. That was the energy of that scene.

[Craig]

It's very. It's. It's very comedy and manners. Just like there's always pressure on everything. There's always somebody on the other side of a door. There's always a secret under a table. It's always just like weasel under a table, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it also sounds like too, like the. The style of the novel. Like, obviously it's funny. Right. But it seems like funny parts, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It is not modernist in any way. Right. And, like, it is not like, playing with form. It is not, you know, kind of advanced. I'm just thinking of the other authors that are within a decade of this guy who are co. Are breaking through. And like, if you're going to have a woman, main character, like, you also have Virginia Woolf out there, like, breaking through at this exact moment, too.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And then. And then this comes and it's kind of like a. I don't know, it's. It's like a little farcical, but it's mostly just like launching off of a marriage plot kind of.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Kind of scenario. You know, like, it's not. It's not breaking ground in really any way that I can think of.

[Craig]

And yet see whether or not. Even if he was not. Yeah. He would have to be doing something a little different in terms of what he's doing with his nostalgia to, like, run with the people who are going to get canonized within the next, like, 10 years, I think.

[Andrew]

I think he's like a quote unquote, serious author writing a story like this.

[Craig]

This man was so serious.

[Andrew]

Would have focused on the character of Walter, who likes to hang out with all the black people in town and, like, shoot dice with them.

[Craig]

Yep, yep.

[Andrew]

And gets in trouble and has to run away. And he would be kind of an insufferable, kind of Holden Caulfield sort of type, but he would also hold up a mirror to the bad parts of society in a way that was more like enduring or something. Like, I think that there. Yeah. Like, that's the path not traveled in Alice Adams, I think.

[Craig]

Sure. Yeah. It feels like this is a. Just a different lane than a lot of other stuff we've read. And a lot of. Whenever we. When we go back to the 1920s, it's usually something that has been like, capital C canonized, and this guy's just over here doing his thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, we've, you know, he's canonized now. He's in our canon.

[Craig]

He is in our canon. Do you think, Andrew, that he should. We should revisit him? Do we need to do.

[Andrew]

I would be curious. I would be curious for you to read Magnificent Ambersons or something.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I don't. I don't think we can do Penrod. I don't want. I don't want to spend a whole episode talking about all the, like, buckwheat level. No, no, you're right. Yeah. Like, no, that would just be all that episode was. I. I don't want to paint too rosy a picture about Booth Tarkington, because a lot of the joy of this episode has been, like, this guy has a name that owns.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And he's got a unique kind of arc as far as his fame goes.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And he wrote entertaining books that have fallen out of vogue.

[Craig]

Interesting.

[Andrew]

And maybe it's fine that he's fallen out of vogue. Like, I don't. I don't want to be too, like, relentlessly positive on Booth talking. I just think that this. I think that this particular. This episode in this guy have been, like, fun to dig into from a research perspective. They, like, made something fire in my brain. That doesn't mean. I think that he's some, like, great, undiscovered gem of a guy who we need to, like, resurface under, like, no matter what the cost. You know what I mean?

[Craig]

We don't need to reclaim him necessarily.

[Andrew]

We don't need to reclaim Bootstracking. I'm glad to know that he's over here, wherever he is.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

His whole family seems like they loved Uncle Booth. Like, everybody loved Bootstrack.

[Craig]

That was the thing. The end of that got leave piece is just like, every kid in this family loved Uncle Booth. Every time they hung out with Uncle Booth, they were happy. Just like, there are worse ways to be remembered, I suppose. But if you.

[Andrew]

And listen, if you want to name your dog Tooth Barkington, then you have a very funny name that is also a fun story. And you can be like, you know, this guy Booth talking to won the Pulitzer twice. Nobody knows who he is.

[Craig]

Mary Garth, in the overdue Discord, did point out, did look up all the jeopardy. Clues that had ever been done about Booth Tarkington.

[Andrew]

Uhhuh.

[Craig]

Most of them were for a thousand or two thousand dollars. Most of them were very hard. And they were like, do you know this man's name?

[Andrew]

Can you name. Can you? But the thing is, though, once you hear it, you're never. You're never. You never forget Booth Tarkington.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Andrew]

Once you know That a man named Booth Tarkington exists. A man who willed this episode into existence from beyond the grave by having such a sick name.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's true.

[Andrew]

You'll never forget.

[Craig]

It's true.

[Andrew]

You'll never forget.

[Craig]

Well, if you, the listener at home, have strong feelings about whether or not we should revisit Booth Tarkington in the future, please send us an email overdue podmail.com or find us on social media at overduepod. Andrew, thanks for reading this book. I'm glad we got to talk about our friend Tark.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Finally, finally, finally, Booth Tarkington.

[Craig]

Everybody's been clamoring, Tark, Tark, Tark, Tark, Tark. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laranges. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet website. We have the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read you can follow along there. If you click the links of all the non public domain books on that site, you go to bookshop.org, we haven't talked about it in a while, but you can buy those books and support a local bookseller and we get like a small cut of that.

[Craig]

Yeah, but you could also support the local bookseller. They get a cut of it too.

[Andrew]

Yes, yes, obviously. But everybody wins.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's true.

[Andrew]

I think. Patreon.com overdupod is our Patreon site. You can support us directly financially there, get access to our Discord server and episodes of our bonus Long Read podcast. It May be One More Time, which is wrapping up this month with a viewing of the 1995 Babysitters Club movie. We talked about what's happening next, I think in episode 700. But we are going to read the Silmarillion next for a miniseries we're calling the sillymarillion.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

If you want to get. If you want to jump on that train just as it's leaving the station. Patreon.com/overdue Pod Craig, what are you reading for next week? And why isn't it Booth Arkington?

[Craig]

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. We've never done Didion before. I'm excited. It also seems like this is a novel about a lady with complications or who causes them. So it's also like a Hollywood ish book. I'm excited. We haven't really done like a Hollywood book in a while, if ever.

[Andrew]

Looking looking forward to talking about Hollyweird.

[Craig]

Yeah, let's get a little Hollyweird. Next week with Joan Didion. That's my plan.

[Andrew]

All right, everybody, thank you for joining us for Tark Week, a year, a yearly tradition from here on out, maybe. And until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. Sam, that was a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

It's fine. Let's just do half an hour in Booth.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, it's dark week.

[Craig]

It's dark week. I can't believe that the guys were, like, sending telegrams, like, hey, can we just give the book to Booth? This would be fine.

[Andrew]

Give it to Booth.

[Craig]

Give it to Booth.

[Andrew]

Hashtag, give it to Booth. There's a sister doing a letter writing campaign.

[Craig]

La la land of Pulitzer Prizes. Give it to Booth.

[Andrew]

He's got one. It's awful lonely sitting on that shelf. I assume it was a physical thing.

[Craig]

I'm sure it was.

[Andrew]

I don't know if you get a trophy.

[Craig]

I don't know that you do. You get a Pulitzer. You should get university. What?

[Andrew]

Because then I'm gonna feel like I need to keep the check to have, like, a physical keepsake from my win, you know?

[Craig]

McCrispy strips are now at McDonald's. Tender juicy and its own sauce. Would you look at that? Well, you can't see it, but trust me, it looks delicious. New McCrispy strips now at McDonald's.