Additionally, it sees a return to the familiar territory of Lewis' fictional American city of Zenith, in the state of Winnemac.
Presented as six long, uninterrupted monologues by Lowell Schmaltz, a travelling salesman in office supplies, the eponymous first section was originally published in The American Mercury in 1927.
This announcement followed and was partly due to the death of his son, Calvin Jr., from an infection in a blister gained while playing tennis on the White House court.
Five years later, in 1929, Coolidge wrote: "When he [Calvin Jr.] went, the power and the glory of the Presidency went with him...I don't know why such a price was exacted for occupying the White House.
Lowell Schmaltz is attempting to prevail upon his cousin Walt to lend him money to keep his business afloat, on the strength of a new concession, "the exclusive Zenith agency for Zenith for these new cash registers – and say, what the cash register means, what it means to the modern and efficient conduct of business..." (p. 163) But cousin Walt is clearly hesitant, as Schmaltz replies to him: "And I certainly do admit all your criticisms, and I'm going to ponder on 'em and try to profit by 'em" (p. 164).
These include her wanting him to be a man of the house, to buy her the latest gadgets and clothes, to "carve the duck and fix the furnace", and the like.
"I could see he was crazy to make a loan on security like I can give him, but he tried to pretend he was holding off, and I had to sit around a whole evening listening to his wife and him chewing the rag (p.
At a dinner of fried chicken with Mr and Mrs George Babbitt, Schmaltz recounts the trip that he almost made from Zenith to Yellowstone Park.
The final part of The Man Who Knew Coolidge is the text of a presentation given by Schmaltz at the Men's Club of the Pilgrim Congregational Church.
Naturally, I'm opposed to his being President, but I've been perfectly willing to see him rise as far as he has, and while he's almost certainly never heard of me, if he were here I'd be glad to give him the hand and good wishes of Lowell Schmaltz!"
Schmaltz also decries the "notoriety-hunting hacks" who have defamed the memories of the likes of George Washington, Henry Ward Beecher, and Warren G. Harding.
Of the latter, he says: "And no less than three disgraceful books, two of them novels and one a screed by a woman claiming to have known him too intimately, have dared to hint that our Martyr President, Harding himself, was a dumb-bell surrounded by crooks" (p. 272).
The books referenced are the 1926 scandal-drama, Revelry by Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1927's The President's Daughter by Nan Britton, and Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait, a 1927 biography by Paxton Hibben.
The lengthy first section, which originally appeared in The American Mercury, was an adaptation of a monologue that Lewis had performed during the writing of Elmer Gantry.
After its American Mercury publication in 1927, Lewis elected to expand The Man Who Knew Coolidge into a full book, stating that he could "write this stuff at incredible speed" and predicting possible sales of as many as 200,000 copies in correspondence with Harcourt.
In the United States, although Lewis imagined The Man Who Knew Coolidge selling as many as 200,000 copies, it actually sold only 20,000 of its initial 30,000 print run, with the left-overs being remaindered.