Arrowsmith

By Sinclair Lewis

This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for 1926.

 It starts with the young Martin Arrowsmith and follows him through school and medical school and his career in medicine. While in school he discovers he likes working in a lab best, but because of a stupid disagreement with his mentor, he leaves lab work and ends up in private practice in a small town with his young wife Leora, who is pretty much a zero. Her only quality is that she loves Martin.
Martin likes to do things right. He wants to do what is best and what is good medicine. But he doesn't sit right with the people of the small town who misinterpret his efforts and he ends up losing the respect of the community. So he finds a job with a public health department. But he steps on people's toes trying to do a good job and is forced out.
Next he ends up at a big research institute in New York City, working with his old college lab mentor. The pay is good and Martin gets to do what he is best suited for: research. It seems to be the dream job. But once again, he discovers his fellows at the institute all have feet of clay. For one thing, he is pressured to publish his research before he is absolutely sure of his results because the institute is looking for big, headline-grabbing discoveries.
Martin is sent out to deal with an outbreak of plague on an island. He is supposed to run a controlled test which would require injecting one group with his plague cure and keeping another group as control to see if the cure really works. But when he sees how the people are suffering he breaks down and injects everyone. And they get better. But was it because of the cure or because the disease just ran its course? He doesn't know. And Leora also dies, but that hardly matters since she was such a nonentity.
Martin meets a rich, society woman on the island and when he gets back to New York, they get married which turns out to be a big mistake. At first, it is fun going to work at the institute in a fancy limo. But, unlike Leora, the new wife expects Martin to pay attention to her and to their baby son; to show up for her society dinner parties, to learn to golf, play bridge and fit in with her luxurious life style, be a good example to their child. But things are getting really interesting in the lab and Martin can't tear himself away. He tries to explain to the new wife, but she just doesn't get it. Then she starts pressuring him to accept the directorship of the institute, which would mean giving up what he loves best, his lab work.
Martin is a well meaning but driven fellow. He is not very lovable. He is not a good mixer, he doesn't really fit in anywhere. He is only comfortable in the lab.

I didn't really care for the story. Martin is overbearing, obsessive, selfish, tactless, borderline alcoholic, and he is a lousy husband and father. I was pretty tired of him by the time I finished the novel.

Review from The New York Times.