What is the author's style in Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis?

Elmer Gantry is a picaresque novel. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. There is no character development, and so Elmer, after his character is first established, does not change during the course of the novel. The main purpose of the picaresque novel is satire. Satire ridicules its subject, with the intention of arousing contempt or scorn in the reader. In Elmer Gantry, the object of Lewis's satire is not only Elmer himself, who after the tabernacle fire ". . . rescued at least thirty people who had already rescued themselves. . . ." but the entire clerical profession and the fundamentalist Protestant dogmas they represent.