An epic comedy, sixteen years in the making, about love, spirit, and the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, from the author of the perennial cult bestsellers The River Why and The Brothers K.
A bolt from an Aero México DC-8 falls from the sky, killing a Mexican girl and throwing the faith of a young American Jesuit into crisis. The actor Jamey Van Zandt's mother dies on his fifth birthday, sparking a lifetime of repressed anger that he only unlashes once a year when he recklessly duels the Fate, God, or Power who let the coincidence happen. A young woman, Risa McKeig, runs through the streets of Seattle experiencing a shooting star moment that pierces her world with a love that will eventually help heal both the Jesuit and the angry actor.
The sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious journeys of this "unintentional menagerie" carry them to the healing lands
