A novel in the tradition of those of Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis, The Turmoil is set in what was once a small, quiet city—never named but closely resembling the author’s hometown of Indianapolis—that has been rapidly transformed into a bustling, money-making nest of competitors overrun by “the worshippers of Bigness.”
The Turmoil tells the intertwined stories of the Sheridans, whose integrity wanes as their wealth increases, and the Vertrees, who remain noble but impoverished. Linked by a romance between a Sheridan son and a Vertrees daughter, the story of the two families provides a dramatic view of what America was like on the verge of industrialization.