Almighty Me

What do you do when you're granted Gods power for a whole year—no strings attached—by an urbane, bald-headed heavenly mes­senger named Chet?  


That's the question facing Charlie Wiggins, the hapless car salesman who chronicles his run-in with omnipotence in the outrageous, wickedly funny Almighty Me. Author Robert Bausch aims his inspired social satire at men and women, love and marriage, and he hits the comic mark full center. Endearing and dark, side-splitting and thought-provoking, Almighty Me probes the nature of our earthly perplex­ities as it celebrates the loving and fallible human heart.  


Charlie Wiggins is not very different from you and me. To do good in the world is his first inclination, but doing good is harder than it looks, because Charlie can't seem to focus on anything but his own crumbling marriage. With the power of God, it’s easy enough to make himself the star salesman at the deal­ership, or to cure his boss's embarrassing speech problem, or even to bring his mother-in-law back from the dead.  


But to turn his adored wife, Dorothy, away from her determined quest for independence? That's where this befuddled acting deity dis­covers that omnipotence has its limitations. "In the face of that conscious choice to strive for what she needed,' my 'power' seemed helpless. Either it was not adequate—and God's power is tremendously overrated—or women have unbelievable strength, and even God pales in the face of a woman's will."  


Only a guided tour of heaven convinces Charlie that it’s time to deal with the world at large. To his horror, he learns the chilling answer to his question "Why me?" and decides to confront his cosmic responsibilities. When he does, both Dorothy and God himself are in for a big surprise. 


The Washington Post proclaimed Robert Bausch's novel "a 20th-century response to Voltaire's Candide.'" Almighty Me confirms that comparison, tracking one soul's hilarious misadventures as he stumbles toward enlighten­ment. Here is comedy that is philosophical and fantastical, uproarious and deeply humane. Almighty Me combines a thoroughly contempo­rary vision of modern love with a timeless com­passion for the precarious human condition.