Lay preacher Obadiah Wheeler is responsible for conducting a group of missionaries into "unassigned territory," a stretch of Nevada wilderness open to evangelistic efforts. Obadiah's faith is shaky at best and no match for the tempting charms of the co-proprietor of a desert museum, raven-haired beauty Delandra Hummer. Together the two set off into the vast emptiness of the Mojave in search of a buyer for the museum's prize exhibit, an extraterrestrial relic. Their hilarious road trip - punctuated by encounters with UFO cults, wild rednecks, and hippie burnouts - throbs with violence and madness as well as the possibility of spiritual enlightenment.
"An accomplished new novel that confirms the promise of Nunn's first book, Tapping the Source…Nunn writes with a keen portentousness about the warped people in the wasteland, creating what might be described as a western gothic. His examination of cultish thought is respectful, intriguing, and funny, in a narrative that never loses dramatic momentum."
