Elmer Gantry

''For the film based on the novel see Elmer Gantry (film)

For information on the UK singer Elmer Gantry, aka Dave Terry, see Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera

Elmer Gantry is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 and published by Harcourt in March 1927.

Background

Lewis did research for the novel by observing the work of preacher Burris Jenkins, pastor in the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Jenkins introduced Lewis to many other clergymen, among them the Reverend L.M. Birkhead, a Unitarian and an agnostic. Schorer says that both of these associations, as well as others, influenced characters in the novel. There is no record of the character of Elmer Gantry or any other characters as being fictionalizations of the careers of Billy Sunday or Aimee Semple McPherson. The novel is dedicated by Lewis "to H. L. Mencken, with profound admiration."

Synopsis

The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who, upon realizing the power, prestige, and easy money that being a fundamentalist evangelist can bring, pursues his "religious" ambitions with relish, contributing to the downfall, even death, of key people around him as the years pass. Gantry continues to womanize, is often exposed as a fraud, and frequently faces a complete downfall, yet he is never fully discredited and always manages to emerge triumphant and reaching ever greater heights of social standing.

Critical and other reaction

Mark Schorer, then of the University of California, Berkeley, notes that "the forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality." Schorer also says that, while researching the book, that Lewis attended two or three church services every Sunday while in Kansas City, and that "he took advantage of every possible tangential experience in the religious community." The result is a novel that satirically represents the religious activity of America in evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s toward it. Elmer Gantry also appears in another, lesser known Lewis novel, Gideon Planish.

On publication in 1927, Elmer Gantry created a public furor. The book was banned in Boston and other cities and denounced from pulpits across the USA. One cleric suggested that Lewis should be imprisoned for five years, and there were also threats of physical violence against the author. The famous evangelist Billy Sunday called Lewis "Satan’s cohort". The novel remains unpopular with many evangelical Christians.

Shortly after the publication of Elmer Gantry, H. G. Wells published a widely-syndicated newspaper article called "The New American People," in which he largely based his observations of American culture on the novels of Sinclair Lewis.

Adaptations

• A Broadway play by Patrick Kearney (not the serial killer of the same name) opened on August 7, 1928 at the Playhouse Theatre, where it ran for 48 performances. The cast included Edward J. Pawley (later of Hollywood and Big Town fame) as Elmer Gantry and Vera Allen as Sister Sharon Falconer.
• The 1960 film of the same name starred Burt Lancaster as Gantry and Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon Falconer.
• A 1970 Broadway musical adaptation titled Gantry opened and closed on the same night.
• In November 2007, an opera by Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein premiered in the James K. Polk Theater in Nashville. New York Times article on new opera

See also

Christian evangelist scandals

External links

• Elmer Gantry at Google Books

Other important facts

• M*A*S*H (TV series) episode 1 (The Pilot Episode) During a fundraising dance, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) likens Major Burns (Larry Linville) to Elmer Gantry.
• In one scene of the original Broadway production of Elmer Gantry at The Playhouse Theater in 1928, the Reverend Gantry (played by Broadway star Edward J. Pawley) raced out into the theater audience in a make-believe attempt to obtain converts.
• The female evangelist is based on real-life Sister Aimee Semple McPherson.
• After its run on Broadway, Elmer Gantry went on a national tour. It was not well received by the religious factions in the Midwest, according to the play's star, Edward J. Pawley. His co-star on the road tour was Adele Klaer who replaced Vera Allen in the role of Sister Sharon Falconer.
• George F. Babbitt, the main character in Lewis' 1922 novel "Babbitt", is a minor character in "Elmer Gantry" and the one most responsible in bringing Sharon Falconer's revival to his home town of Zenith
• Irwin M. Fletcher, (Chevy Chase's protagonist character in the film "Fletch") uses the name "Elmer Fudd Gantry" when asked what his name was by a staffer of 'Jimmy Lee Farnsworth" a televangelist played by R. Lee Ermey in the follow-up film, "Fletch Lives".

References

• Nelson Manfred Blake, "How to Learn History from Sinclair Lewis and Other Uncommon Sources", American Character and Culture in a Changing World: Some Twentieth-Century Perspectives, ed. John A. Hague. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1979. 111-23
• Wheeler Dixon, "Cinematic Adaptations of the Works of Sinclair Lewis", Sinclair Lewis at 100: Papers Presented at a Centennial Conference., ed. Michael Connaughton. St. Cloud, MN: St. Cloud State University, 1985, pp. 191-200
• Robert J. Higgs. "Religion and Sports: Three Muscular Christians in American Literature", American Sport Culture: The Humanistic Dimensions ed. Wiley Lee Umphlett. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985, pp. 226-34
• James M. Hutchisson, The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 1920-1930 University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996
• George Killough, "Elmer Gantry, Chaucer's Pardoner, and the Limits of Serious Words." Sinclair Lewis: New Essays in Criticism. Ed. James M. Hutchisson. Troy, New York: Whitston, 1997. 162-74
• Edward A. Martin, "The Mimic as Artist: Sinclair Lewis." H.L. Mencken and the Debunkers. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984. 115-38
• Gary H. Mayer, "Love is More Than the Evening Star: A Semantic Analysis of Elmer Gantry and The Man Who Knew Coolidge", American Bypaths: Essays in Honor of E. Hudson Long. Ed. Robert G. Collmer and Jack W. Herring. Waco: Baylor University Press, 1980. 145-66
• James Benedict Moore, "The Sources of Elmer Gantry." The New Republic 143 (8 August 1960): 17-18
• Edward J. Piacentino, "Babbittry Southern Style: T. S. Stribling's Unfinished Cathedral." Markham Review 10 (1981): 36-39
• Elizabeth S. Prioleau, "The Minister and the Seductress in American Fiction: The Adamic Myth Reduz", Journal of American Culture 16.4 (1993): 1-6
• Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, 1961
• Mark Schorer, "Afterword", Elmer Gantry, Signet Books edition, 1970
• Robert Gibson Corder, Ph.D., "Edward J. Pawley: Broadway's Elmer Gantry, Radio's Steve Wilson, and Hollywood's Perennial Bad Guy", Outskirts Press, 2006
• Edward Shillito, "Elmer Gantry and the Church in America", Nineteenth Century and After 101 (1927): 739-48