Elmer Gantry

A hard-drinking, womanizing former football star with a silver tongue and no scruples about using it, Elmer Gantry stumbles out of a college revival meeting and into the American ministry. Sinclair Lewis follows him as charisma, showmanship, and calculated piety carry him toward wealth and power in the church. The 1927 novel skewers the business of organized religion, the fervor of the revival tent, and the gap between what preachers proclaim and how they actually live. Denounced from pulpits and banned in several cities, it became one of the most talked-about books of its decade, and its portrait of a charming religious fraud has lost none of its bite. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB.