Ann Vickers is a product of the twentieth century–a woman, fearless and dauntless, who set out to do things–to whom it mattered not that convention and tradition had to be defied.
A career, success, fame, love, a home, a child–Ann wanted them all. She achieved success and frustration, bleak apartment hotels, domestic boredom, public homage and furtive rapture–until at last she dared to be herself.
Mr. Lewis draws a frank, enduring picture of Ann, one that has life and color and speed against a background teeming with the questions and causes of the day. He does for the social worker and penologist, exposing the outrageous prison conditions, what he did for the doctor in Arrowsmith and the minister in Elmer Gantry–with the same sure insight and clear penetration.