The Great American Pie Company

"The Great American Pie Company" by Ellis Parker Butler is a humorous novel written in the early 20th century. The story revolves around a fictional small-town setting where two men, Ephraim Deacon and Phineas Doolittle, find themselves in a pie-making competition that escalates into an elaborate scheme to dominate the pie market and beyond. The novel captures the essence of American entrepreneurial spirit with a light-hearted and satirical tone. The narrative begins with Eph Deacon, a philosophical man whose wife, Mrs. Deacon, bakes exquisite pies, leading to a local business rivalry with Phineas Doolittle, who also wants to sell his own pies at lower prices. Their comedic exchanges lead them to consider a partnership, which evolves into a grand—and increasingly absurd—business plan that includes buying out farms, fruit supply, bakeries, and even railroads. As they dream of their pie empire, they humorously navigate the complexities and potential pitfalls of their ambitious ideas, highlighting themes of competition, camaraderie, and the quirks of small-town life. Ultimately, their plans come into question as they grapple with the realities of business risks and the role of labor unions, leading to a comically unsatisfying conclusion to their grand ambitions. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays and is most famous for his short story "Pigs Is Pigs", in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs, which soon start proliferating exponentially. His most famous character was Philo Gubb.