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Illustrated portrait of Lorinda Pike

A character in It Can't Happen Here

Lorinda Pike

Lorinda is a widowed businesswoman who runs the Beulah Valley Tavern and has a long affair with Doremus.

The book

Cover of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen HereSinclair Lewis, 1935

An American dictatorship arrives through elections, promises, resentment, and a leader who insists only he can fix the country.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Lorinda is a widowed businesswoman who runs the Beulah Valley Tavern and has a long affair with Doremus. She is more decisive and openly rebellious than he is. She becomes a central New Underground organizer, helps arrange his escape, and accepts assignments that separate them. She survives into the continuing resistance, though their relationship receives no settled ending.

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