Richard Lingeman is a senior editor of The Nation. His books include Small Town America: A Narrative History, 1620-Present; Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front, 1941-1945; An American Journey: Theodore Dreiser (a two-volume biography, now available in one abridged paperback edition from John Wiley & Sons); Sinclair Lewis: Rebel From Main Street (Random House); Double Lives: American Writers’ Friendships (Random House), and, most recently, The Noir Forties: The American People from Victory to the Cold War (Nation Books).