Quite a story. Jones begins in Indianapolis. Mother strong-willed, but not loving, person. Father ill and weak. Jones odd as a child, but charismatic. Preaching in the woods; organizing baseball league. Hints of cruelty. Luring a puppy to death. Good: orderly, concern for poor, integrationist. Evil: sense of personal importance. Builds a church. Learns from Jealous Divine, a Philadelphia preacher with strong following. Brings about change in Indianapolis racial politics through charm and the help of his canny (politically) wife. Fear of nuclear war sends him to Brazil looking for a new place for his church. While he's gone, church weakens. Returns . . . nuclear war fears take him to Ukiah in California. Harder to fit in. Redneck country . . . but he tries. Church isn't growing . . . no population to exploit. Where to next? He looks at Vancouver and Guadalajara. MLK and RFK killed in rapid succession. Visits San Francisco.
PUPPY Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of. Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family. Mom: husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm. Conversations together: Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy. Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house. (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree. Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example. Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done. Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
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