Robert Penn Warren's second novel is set in a more modern world than his first, Night Rider (1939), which deals with the Kentucky tobacco wars of the turn of the century. By contrast, At Heaven's Gate deals with the turbulent social world of the 1920s and 1930s, with its loss of respect for traditional moral values. A major concern of the novel is the amoral world of business and capitalism which had characterized America in the 1920s and which Warren had attacked as one of the Southern agrarian writers in I'll Take My Stand (1930). This type of corruption still has relevance since land development schemes and failed banks and savings and loan scandals have continued to plague the Sunbelt in recent years.

Although characterized more by his power and influence than by direct presentation of character, Bogan Murdock is the symbol of the ruthless and amoral spirit...