Customer Reviews

Kingsblood Royal

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This is the fifth book of Sinclair Lewis's that I have read. Like the previous two I completed; "Main Street" and "Elmer Gantry", "Kingsblood Royal" seems dated but still conveys a very timeless message. This novel is about a man of prominance in a Northern Minnesota city (I figured it to be a composite of Bemidji and Grand Rapids) who suddenly finds out he is descended from a Negro. He goes through a transformation of perspective on racial issues. In time, he declares himself publicly to be a "Negro". The effects of this declaration demonstrate the prejudices and ignorances (pardon the redundancy) of the US in the immediate post-WWII years.

Sinclair Lewis does a compelling job of ferreting out the evils of racial prejudices by showing how one previously accepted man of importance descends to the level of a societal pariah. Close friends turn away, well-meaning people succumb to pressure and cease their assistance, family members disavow him. At the same time, we become familiar with the Black residents of Grand Republic who share their trials and tribulations. I was impressed by how well Lewis covered his subject from so many angles. In doing so, he challenges the reader to examine where he or she would find themselves among the varied characters in "Kingsblood Royal"

My complaint about the book is somewhat qualified. Mr. Kingsblood is 1/32 Negro yet he grabs onto that as his racial identity after living his life unaware of it. I'm 1/32 Irish but I don't consider myself to therefore be Irish. It's one thing to discover your long lost father; it's quite another to discover your long lost great great great grandfather. I suspect that this was what Lewis felt he needed to do to make the story otherwise believable and to point out, as well, how the stereotypes of that period would identify such a small percentage as making no difference in definition. I'll grant him that privilege given that he wrote such an excellent book.

KINGSBLOOD ROYAL is a 1947 novel rich in sometimes unintended, sometimes avoidable consequences as a basically dull, average American Neil Kingslbood plods back into American business humdrum. He had been wounded in 1943 as a Captain in the US Army. He "piously" (after the fashion of the Roman hero Aeneas) promises his father to look into a family legend (communicated surprisingly late to the hero) that the Kingsbloods are descendants of English royalty. Nothing is clear one way on the other on the paternal side of genealogy. But interviews with his father's mother and then with a Minnesota historian reveal first that Neil's great, great, great maternal grandfather, the Canadian voyageur Xavier Pic, had a Chippewa wife. And shortly thereafter there is convincing documentary evidence that Pic himself was 100% black, having been born on the isle of Martinique around 1750.

That makes the startled Neil Kingsblood both 1/32 black as well as heavily Native American. What to do about it? There had been and was still no suspicion among any family members or friends and business colleagues that the Kingsbloods were (by certain American, mainly Southern, standards) legally black. No one need therefore ever find out. And it was pretty clear that if the word got out, the results would not be pretty.

Yet Neil, a man not otherwise noted for boldness or delicate conscience, decides to "come out," even after being advised not to by newfound black friends in the city of Grand Republic, Minnesota. The results are even more awful than a reader nearly 60 years after the fictional events might imagine. Neil loses job after job. His wife is socially ostracized. Eventually even his young daughter is snubbed as well. Family members of his generation beg him to keep quiet. When he does not, a marriage does not take place. A divorce occurs. Neil is blamed for his father's sudden death. Bloody mindedness spreads.

At the end of the novel, the hero, his family and some armed black friends fire on an angry mob massing at the Kingsblood home after community leaders fail to persuade them to move out of the semi-prestigious all-white neighborhood. The police move in to arrest Neil and others but exempt Neil's wife Vestal, daughter of a community leader. She however remains true to Neil to the end. She assures her arrest by hitting a policeman over the head with a pistol.

The story may sound far-fetched. But remember 1925 when black Doctor Ossian Sweet moved into an angry previously all white neighborhood on the East Side of Detroit. Shots from inside Sweet's house killed a demonstrator outside. Defended by Clarence Darrow, Sweet was acquitted. (No one was killed in KINGSBLOOD ROYAL). But racial violence rose through the next twenty years in Detroit.

Anti-black racism was still strong in 1947 when KINGSBLOOD ROYAL hit the streets. In some small way Sinclair Lewis may have almost succeeded in laughing American racial idiocy away.

I had very high hopes for this novel of racial prejudice and after a compelling start I slogged thru the second half kind of longing for it to end. The set-up has Neil Kingsblood and his wife having domestic help problems and thoroughly disappointed with the black maid who just wants to have a good time. But Kingsblood is asked to look into his family history and finds evidence of negro blood in a early American relative. He's very conflicted as to whether he should divulge this information to his family and friends. But needless to say he is shocked and a bit chastened in his attitude toward black people in his town and does a bit of soul-searching. His interior dialogues are interesting for the time in which this was written and I have to hand it to Mr. Lewis that this must've been brave, even in the subject matter. However, the spoken dialogue is a bit laughable and the white characters are so mean-spirited and without any sympathy that this just becomes hard to warm up to. And the many black characters are soapbox yellers that crowd out the humanity in anyone. I found it hard to empathize with characters who had such silly names too (Bugdoll, come on!). It seems that Mr. Lewis sort of sabotaged his integrity with these comic book names.... Tempest in a teapot! But I am glad that I read this if only to know that the man tried to shed some much-needed light on racial relations circa mid-20th century and that although it doesn't all work, it's an interesting premise.

There was never an author who understood the mind of the Middlewest better than Sinclair Lewis. I liked his characterizations in Main Street, Babbitt and Arrowsmith. When I found this book, I didn't know what to expect. It's a little like jazz: if I have to explain it to you, you don't understand it. (Only in the Middlewest would the Blue Ox National Bank Building be the tallest building in a town called Grand Republic.) Here, Lewis describes the racist attitudes of the folks in progressive Democrat-Farmer-Labor Minnesota. This would be an excellent novel for high school students. They most likely won't grasp the sarcasm, but it will help them get a better grasp of racism and white "priviledge". The US in 1947 was still a white man's country. Considering how many people have conniptions over Huckleberry Finn, I wonder how many high schools have this on their reading lists, or even know the novel exists.

What if you discovered you were part black? Only 1/32nd, not enough to darken your skin, but beyond the pale in 1947. When Neil Kingsblood uncovers his heritage, he also discovers his conscience, finding it difficult, finally impossible to not express his outrage at the racial status quo.

It is important to note that Kingsblood has so internalized the beliefs of his community about racial purity that he soon comes to see himself as being a "Negro," and not simply the bearer of a small amount of nonwhiteness (something not unusual in America). When he comes out--a phrase Kingsblood often uses and one that takes on additional resonance today--the white community instantly sees him as being a racial imposter, a black outsider. He understands his transgression, he knows what he is losing, but does it anyway, and even when further experience reveals just how much is at stake, he does not back down, giving Kingsblood a nobility he lacked before the revelation.

Lewis's characters are felt-through creations, not cardboard cutouts. Although the novel's violent conclusion was considered melodramatic by white critics back then, several decades of truth-telling since 1947 have proven the hard-core truth of Lewis's premise: racism and violence go hand in hand.

But what gives the novel its emotional drive is Kingsblood's relationship with his wife, Vestal. Not an outright bigot--she's too well-bred for that--Vestal is both fiercely loyal to her husband and dismayed by his annoucement, yet over the course of the novel you see her attempts at growth and in the novel's denoument, her final decision.

It's a novel that is suited for adaptation to the screen, with the added advantage nowadays of there being so many well-known African-American actors. A quality movie, in fact, would be much in line with Lewis's ethos of writing in an accessible style to reach the masses but with a social activist message. It would be an eloquent rebuttal of the novel's initial poor reception.

Considered a minor and inferior novel compared to his best, it is "inferior" only in the sense that say, "Day Tripper" might be called an inferior Bealtes' single. Set immediately after WWII, it is the best kind of satire. That is, it seems wildly over the top that people's actions and attitudes toward race could be so ignorant, yet he is only, sadly, reporting on what people at the time actually believed and behaved. Like his "It can't Happen Here," about a greedy ignoramus who becomes President, it is unfortunately not merely a period piece. It is also prescient.

I began to read the book not knowing what the subject matter was. As it unfolded, I became fascinated with the story and the time in which it was written. The main character is in fact noble in character & his wife recognizes it by trying to emulate him. I look forward to reading many more of Lewis' novels.

Lewis dealt with racial discrimination in this story. It revolves upon distinctions made by whites or "racial purity" . Alas a middle class family in the midwest , proud of their lineage finds that in pioneer days, their relatives were trappers of black and Indian ancestry. Thus the proud up and coming businessman becomes the scourge of the town and finds consolation in the hearts of several black associates. This is Lewis at his best . In the end , the outcast is forced to protect himself against the violence prevalent against minorities of the first 1/2 of the 20th century. This book has never seen the light of day because of the critical issues it addressed, way ahead of any Civil Rights laws.

Sinclair Lewis poured his wrath against bigotry into Kingsblood Royal. Even near the end of his career, his writing had power and precision. Years of research illuminated his views, and a talent for scorching satire served him well. Some have argued that Neil Kingsblood would not have made the choice to go public with the discovery of his ancestry, that the story was for that reason not realistic. I disagree. The reasons for his choce develop step by step, conversation by conversation, reaction by reaction, logically and necessarily. I found the novel to be as engrossing as Lewis's widely recognized classics of earlier decades (Babbit, Elmer Gantry, Main Street).

This book is unfortunately still so topical today. Whether its fear and prejudice against Blacks, Hispanics, or Gays this book has a great moral lesson. It views these entrenched ideas from enough of a distance to show their absurdity. Wonderfully enlightening.