Elmer Gantry

By: Sinclair Lewis

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Literary Fiction, 2009

Elmer Gantry is the portrait of a silver-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church, yet lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence.

The title character starts out as a greedy, shallow, philandering Baptist minister, turns to evangelism, and eventually becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Throughout the novel, Gantry encounters fellow religious hypocrites. Although often exposed as a fraud, Gantry is never fully discredited.

Elmer Gantry is considered a landmark American novel and one of the most penetrating studies of hypocrisy in modern literature. It portrays the evangelistic activity that was common in 1920s America as well as attitudes toward it.

©1954 Michael Lewis (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Well Written but a bit long

I think the book could have been a bit more concise. But it was very well written. Narration was excellent.

Great Classic

Sinclair Lewis did a lot of great research on this book. His take on the state of religion back then hasn't really changed much. It's unfortunate but the themes in this book are still present in our current religious circles. Worth the time to listen.

Classic! Not Enough Stars!

I wish we still had writers like Steinbeck, Lewis, Faulkner, and O'Connor. I read this when I was younger and loved and appreciated it even more as an adult, despite so much time having passed. This kind of realism is refreshing, as well as the clever satire, social commentary, and Lewis's command of the English language. As for the narration, in my library nearing 2,000 books, this is one of THE BEST narrated books I have encountered. Each character was individuated with enthusiasm and expertise. I just loved this Audible!

Best narration of an awesome book

I don’t know if there are prizes for book narration, but Anthony Heald sure deserves one!

delightful!

absolutely delightful! I haven't read this in years and I had forgotten what a 'mess' Elmer was!! The reader was wonderful, in carrying us along Elmer's journey and his depiction of the other characters were easy to recognize. Great story and should be required reading for every Pastor and student of Theology!

How a book SHOULD be written.

I wish all books could be written this well. The character development was absolutely amazing. Elmer Gantry was lovable and dreadful all at the same time. I want a sequel only to know him again. He was so well developed. So clear and real. The use of language was well thought out, intentional, meaningful, enticing and entertaining. Sinclair Lewis reminds me of John Steinbeck in his clarity. My only complaint -- and I fear this is because I am a child of TV/video games/movies, etc -- is the story was not captivating. Elmer WAS captivating and his character (and the voice of the reader) really carried me through the entire book. The story itself was plain. But it didn't seem to matter much as Elmer and the reader made up for that. I loved it. I would definitely recommend it. I wish all books were written with this much detail, clarity and care. This is a work of art. Not some silly "journal -entry-stream-of-consciousness" garbage that happened to sell a million copies because everyone reads while their on their treadmills and talking on their blackberry.

Best audiobook reader I've ever listened to

I very much enjoyed the book as well as the peerless reading by this audiobook narrator. Great voice work and very enjoyable book overall that explores the phenomenon of American religion in early 20th-centry America with great humor and relish.

A classic done well!

Controversial when published, but I enjoyed the book, and I can't imagine a better match of a narrator and book.

Adventures in Hypocrisy

You know the book, at least by reputation, but it’s the narrator’s audio sample that draws you in immediately. Anthony Heald is an accomplished actor who injects amazing energy into the novel.

Sinclair Lewis, who among other formative impressions counted a visit to a Billy Sunday show in 1917, was known to refer collectively to evangelists as “the religion racket.” In “Elmer Gantry,” he portrays the rise and fall of a silver-tongued young Kansas preacher, rising and falling again, over and over, each time reaching greater heights (or depths) of audacity than the time before.

It is a brilliant treatise on hypocrisy. Elmer is a predatory preacher with an abject dearth of scruples, capable of being deeply moved by the adoration of his flock on a Sunday morning, and then hustling those same parishioners, and perhaps stealing one of their daughters, or wives, by nightfall.

Curiously, he studies hard, works on self-improvement, and devises creative new ways to serve his congregations. He’s smart, innovative, and likeable. No one ever worked harder – but only to enrich and empower himself.

After serving faithfully in a succession of tiny towns that he believes don’t deserve a man of his talent, working his way up, Elmer finally rises to lead a major church in the fictional Midwestern town of Zenith. There, he perfects his skills, commands attention, womanizes, and aspires to even greater acclaim.

Given the contemporaneous Scopes “Monkey Trial” on the teaching of evolution, Lewis observes, “It was at this time that the brisker conservative clergy men saw that their influence in oratory and incomes were threatened by any authentic learning... They saw that a proper school should teach nothing but bookkeeping, agriculture, geometry, dead languages made deader by leaving out all the amusing literature, and the Hebrew Bible as interpreted by men superbly trained to ignore contradictions; men technically called Fundamentalists.”

As Barnes and Noble notes in a review: “The founding of the Moral Majority would not have surprised Lewis; he would only have wondered why it took so long.”

To his horror, a gullible Elmer is exposed in his infidelity by the badger game, the oldest trick in the world, just as he is about to be appointed to a lofty position policing the nation’s morals. He is, briefly, a broken man. There is panic, and then, a miraculous escape. “Never again,” he vows, glancing sideways at the appealing ankle of a new choir member, and Elmer Gantry lives to swindle another day.

Revisiting a Classic That's a Bit Worn Out

Would you listen to Elmer Gantry again? Why?

No, but I am certainly open to listening to Babbit, Main Street, Arrowsmith, or It Can't Happen Here.

Have you listened to any of Anthony Heald’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

He is simply superb. His range of voices, his different dynamics and accents, make this as close to drama for the ear as I can imagine.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

As long as it was, I mostly did -- but that's because I had a long cart trip.

Any additional comments?

You get a sense with this of Lewis's real skill as a novelist and of his provocativeness. (He strikes me as the 1920s Jonathan Franzen, which I intend as a compliment.) That said, I think this ultimately falls short of the great work of the same era -- Faulkner's certainly, and even the more comparable Dreiser's. This is great social criticism, though, and, in its best moments when it takes seriously the crises of faith that lead people to embrace a non-ironic catechism, it's still relevant. If you've ever wondered about the socio-political roots of the Moral Majority or the Tea Party, you can find them here. The portraits are caricatured, but many of them -- especially Elmer's own -- are inspired.