The Road to Wellville is a pseudohistorical novel about pseudo-scientific medicine and nutrition. While Kellogg, C. W. Post, and other characters were actual historical personages, Boyle's novel presents them in a slapstick, almost surreal scenario. The liberty that Boyle takes with history is appropriate for parodying the liberty that advertisers take with the truth. The Sanitarium has the aura of a medicine show; and at the end of the novel, one of Kellogg's competitors, Bender, even resorts to playing the so-called Soap Game in Montana. The cereal industry has prepared Bender well for a Wild West con game.