Chapters 1—8

Elmer Gantry begins in 1902. Elmer Gantry and his roommate, Jim Lefferts, have traveled from their college in Kansas to Cato, Missouri, to see their girlfriends. After dinner, the drunken Elmer picks a fight with a man who is heckling Eddie Fislinger, a fellow Terwillinger College student, as he preaches to an outdoor crowd. Eddie spreads the word that Elmer, who has never shown any zeal for religion, has been converted. Jim tries to persuade Elmer not to go along with it, but when Elmer attends the Annual Prayer Week he cannot resist the emotionalism of the service. Everyone congratulates him on his conversion. That night he has doubts, but he is persuaded to speak the following night at the Y.M.C.A. He cribs some passages from a book and then gives a rousing sermon. The college president declares that he is a born preacher...