In Walker Percy's future America, the country is on the brink of disaster. With citizens violently polarized along racial, political, and social lines, and a fifteen-year war still raging abroad, America is crumbling quickly into ruin. The country's one remaining hope is Dr. Thomas More, whose "lapsometer" is capable of diagnosing the spiritual afflictions-anxiety, depression, alienation-driving everyone's destructive and disastrous behavior. But such a potent machine has its pitfalls. As Dr. More soon learns, in the wrong hands, the powerful lapsometer could lead to open warfare, pushing America into anarchy at full-speed.
