The Miracle Pig

The most irritating, demanding, pampered, unemployed degenerate in California finds out that the latest hipster spot is Northwest Arkansas; and so, although he has no money and must travel alone (because he has driven off all of the women in his life), and although he is too sickly to drive and there's hardly any mass transit — he goes, not only for the shallow purpose of just claiming he made the trip, but also to clear up a spiritual matter.

Except for a few pages in the beginning, where the protagonist is analyzed in a most unflattering way, the book is written in the first person, and in an extremely interior way — which is to say that the reader must really live with this self-absorbed, self-appointed, faux-prophet as he trudges against the wind to make his pilgrimage.

All the while, our so-called hero complains about everything and everyone. Perhaps the most heroic thing about him is that no amount of adversity, danger, hardship or risk can deter him from his insatiable desire to get to the bottom of everything, so that he might gather, from every corner of the earth, the evidence he needs to vindicate his unpopular and reductive view of humanity.

However, the world turns out to be a kinder, more hospitable and generous place than the protagonist will admit; and the gods, to whom he never stops bitterly complaining, turn out to be more than willing to put on a good show for him. And, although he in no way deserves it, the Ozark countryside rallies to his cause; and the spiritual questions he brought with him from California, receive a satisfying set of answers.