[6] He contributed to the screenplay for the 1939 film Fisherman's Wharf and wrote the original story for Escape to Paradise.
He returned to New York in 1949 and was working as a contributing editor of Time magazine when he died of a heart attack at age 41.
Time magazine's reviewer wrote of the book, "His hair-raising little tour de force is the more effective for being so quietly, matter-of-factly written.
"[8] Ansgar Allen, in his review of the book following republication in 2021, referred to the narrative as remarkable for its flat emotion and detachment in the face of the desperation of a drowning man.
At the time of its publication, the Phony War was still going on along the French-German border, but within weeks the German Blitzkrieg attack on France and the Low Countries took place and the novel was quickly forgotten.
Lewis' last novel, Silver Dark, which tells the story of a romance between two people with physical deformities, was published posthumously in 1959 by Pyramid Books.