Unassigned Territory
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"[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 this 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." — Publishers Weekly
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. This "desert noir" by National Book Award nominee Kem Nunn was recognized as a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; the author has also written for and produced numerous TV projects, among them John from Cincinnati, Deadwood, and Sons of Anarchy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this accomplished new novel that confirms the promise of Nunn's first book, Tapping the Source, he heat of the Mojave Desert not only curls the hairs on a driver's arm; it also makes the few isolated settlements tremendously lonely, the inhabitants rambunctious and vulgar, and faith a cross between beliefs that began long ago in another desert halfway across the world and kooky ideas about extraterrestrials as gods. Into this desert comes Obadiah Wheeler, a preacher trying to escape the Vietnam draft, who has been asked to lead a group of missionaries into this previously unassigned territory in barren Nevada. A man of shaky principles, he is separated from the sect elder and comes upon a ramshackle museum built around a manufactured space oddity. He encounters the trampy half-sister of the museum operator with whom he goes wandering among the desolate outposts while considering mysteries whose solution may yield either great truths or nonsense. Nunn writes with a keen portentousness about the warped people in this 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. .
