Akedah: the Binding

The Promise, the Promise, the Promise . . .
A casual bar-stool conversation with a mystery man—perhaps a Las Vegas bigwig, perhaps a sociopath—hooks chronic loser Vern McGurren on the chance of a lifetime, requiring a road trip from Chico CA across Yosemite and Death Valley to the monumental stone outcrop of New Mexico's Shiprock. It's a chance to bridge the gap between a desperate father, a suicidal son, and an exiled firstborn who know each other too well, while leaving the gritty mother behind to grapple with dread. But the trip veers into an hallucinatory replay of the mythic Abram/Isaac sacrifice.