Among serious writers of fiction, only Sinclair Lewis enjoyed robust sales in the summer of 1927. Elmer Gantry was far and away the bestselling fiction work of the year. A satire on evangelist preachers, it was roundly condemned across the nation, especially by evangelist preachers. The fundamentalist firebrand Billy Sunday, apprised of its content, called on God “to strike Lewis dead,” which doesn’t seem terribly Christian of him.
